Thread: End of an era.
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Old 27th Feb 2018, 11:17 pm   #26
linescan87
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Meath, Ireland
Posts: 547
Default Re: End of an era.

John was still doing maybe 10 sets a week, but think this was down to the fact that there are so few places left. He used to be surprised at the distances people traveled to get to him. Vacuum cleaner repair was also pretty good along with the domestic spare parts trade.

The rental side was long dead really, one of jobs on Saturdays was scraping ex-rental sets coming back in and that was over twenty years ago. Only the die hard rental customers remained, my Grandmother was one of them.

Funny story on that, it came into my mind over the last few days. Back in about '95 my mother was over from Holland. One day she went for a walk down Bridge Street, at the other end of the town. She was walking past one of the other TV shops, Swords TV.

As she went past a man walked out of the shop with a old colour set in his arms, she asked him if he needed hand. He said no, but you can have this set of you want it. He had bought a new set in the mean time. She agreed and he even dropped it up to the house.

It was on the floor in front of our rental in the living room, mother tuning it in. My grandmother walked "what's that yoke?" Mother replied "it's a TV, you can give that one back to Mr Twamley" granny replied "are you mad, if that thing broke down it would have us out of house and home!"

How's that for dedication? Needless to say that free TV had to go.

The real killer was the rent and commercial rates.

Cheers,

John Joe.
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