Gary and Helen Rossi of Richmond Newsagency will finally be able to sleep in on June 12.
Mrs Rossi told the Gazette on Friday, May 26 that the business will close its doors for the last time on Sunday, June 11.
The building was sold some time ago to the owner of another business on Windsor Street who now has other plans for it.
Mrs Rossi said they looked around for premises that might suit but didn’t find anything so it seemed like a good time to retire. “We made the decision to close,” she said.
The main street newsagency opposite Richmond Park was bought by the Rossis and Mrs Rossi’s brother Peter McKenzie in October, 1989.
“My brother was a newsagent at Forbes and Stanmore, and we basically moved down from Avoca Beach to be newsagents here with him,” she said.
It was a very different lifestyle – and it was seven days a week. “My husband would start his paper run at 2am, that would take him a few hours and he’d have a break and come back. Peter would open at 4 or 4.30 for early commuters and early risers.
As the Gazette spoke to Mrs Rossi across the Mars Bars and Smiths chips at the counter, she constantly stopped to greet customers by name.
“Hello Frank! Hello Don! How are you?
“We will miss our customers – some have become very long-term friends. They walk through the door every day or every week or every two weeks,” she said. "A lot of people like to have a chat and say hello.”
She said the previous owner of the building was a Mr Fienberg, who owned it for 50 years after it was built in the 50s by Vern and Mary Avern.
“Some of our customers are old enough to remember Mr Sullivan selling them newspapers on this site – one lady is 95 and she remembers her parents buying papers from Mr Sullivan’s shop on this site.”
She said Mr Sullivan’s time was around the 1920s. “It might be around a century there have been papers sold on this site.”
She didn’t think it was the end of the road for newspapers yet, saying you’d be surprised how many young people still enjoy reading a real publication.
“Even when the Herald dropped down from a broadsheet, young people were commenting,” she said.
“$10.20 thanks Jasmine. If you’d like to select your account, and PIN and OK.
“Stephen and Julie, how are you both?”
She said she and husband Gary would be staying in the Hawkesbury until they worked out what they would do next.
