Forestville Video/Old English Fish ‘N’ Chips – Forestville, NSW
The dead and buried past regularly finds itself betrayed by even the most unassuming Judas. In the case of Forestville Video at #14 The Centre (don’t miss out, book ahead on 451 3040), the footfalls in the crypt belong to oversized clown shoes.
Krusty’s Fun House, a puzzle game for Sega’s Master System featuring characters from The Simpsons, was an ideal rental upon release in 1992. Tough enough to challenge you over a rainy weekend (or a week at best), but not a keeper. The Flying Edge title found an appropriate home at Forestville Video.
And there, it also found a family. Forestville Video appears to have been “The Centre” of all things Master System, with titles galore to satisfy the weekend cravings of Forestvillians.
And like dandelion seeds borne on the wind, Forestville Video’s Master System library has made its way out into the wider world. Even a cursory glance managed to find them as far as Modbury, Reservoir and even Hobart.
But them’s the spores; what about the source?
On the fringe of the Northern Beaches, Forestville is often overshadowed by its neighbour, Frenchs Forest. But it has its own virtues: plenty of trees, a distinct lack of Tony Abbott these days, and this bustling shopping centre. But it’s not just any centre. This is THE Centre.
The very same! Today, Centurions come here for cakes, cafes and Coles. It’s been a very long time since anyone turned to The Centre with a week of Master System on their mind. Until I rocked up, anyway.
Here’s that core, that heart of Sega goodness as it existed for years. In Australia, the Master System was a viable concern between about 1987 and 1994-ish, so it’s safe to assume that by the time the above photo accompanied this slobbering review in 2011, the games were long gone.
Should I look on things positively purely because of their nostalgia? Because that’s how I feel about Forestville Video.
And so begins Sally R’s breathless account of a dying king’s final days (with a Top Video crown, no less). She goes on to say that although the owner is a lovely old man, the shop itself was looking rather tired. Maybe Krusty and Golvellius were still there after all?
Forestville Video is located in Forestville’s creatively-titled “The Centre”, and looks as though it’s been there for the past thirty years. A small and sometimes dusty store, Forestville Video is truly the stuff of childhoods for us 90’s kids. It has all the ingredients of what made a great night for 1996; copious amounts of lollies and softdrinks, new releases on video and a fairly negotiable late fee policy.
None of that today.
Replaced by a modern milk bar, any “’90s kids” looking for jollies best jog on should they find themselves at The Centre. The toy shop, Kids Paradise, is full of strange ersatz Lego kits seemingly generated by AI; the corpse of the TAB has been coopted by a tax agent; and the pizza option is Dominos. More like the centre of hell…
Anyway, how do I know that Old English is Forestville Video? After all, it’s not like FV was the ‘ville’s only video option back in Sally R’s heyday:
That’s right. Video Ezy, one of the industry’s giants, came to play in Forestville. Shop 25 (today a pharmacy) is located opposite Shop 14, making this into one of the more interesting video shop head to heads of the era. Forestville Video ultimately prevailed, with Video Ezy content to shrivel into one of those vending machines and relocate to nearby Forestway Shopping Centre. A TKO, I think that’s known in industry parlance.
No, the evidence you crave can be found stamped right on Old English’s dirty brick posterior. Let’s away!
It’s seen much better days, but this sign tells us more about the colourful history of The Centre than even Sally R’s faded memories. Tear your eyes away from that bathroom and take a closer look.
Old as it looks, this sign is actually younger than the Master System games found strewn across the used gamiverse. The phone number (book ahead, seriously!) is preceded by a nine, a post-1994 development. Find a Sony PlayStation game with the Forestville Video branding and it’s likely to corroborate.
Also of note: Forestville Video was your headquarters for tennis court bookings. The court still exists, found nearby at Melwood Sports Complex, but the combination of sport and the ultimate prone pastime seems like an uneasy alliance. Maybe it was a role the lovely old man took on out of guilt for all the guts he was responsible for.
Less surprising is the reference to the TAB, which was a couple of doors north of Forestville Video. The final iteration of Forestville TAB was much smaller than the “next to” direction suggests, but as you can see in the photo of Old English, vintage TAB livery can be seen right beside it. It’s likely the TAB downsized as the area’s clubs cut its deplorable lunch. Also, the acronym doesn’t usually feature the periods, so methinks this is just a bit of free advertising on behalf of a lovely old man who may have been a patron.
Old video games are a goldmine of reminders of a world the Sally R in all of us pines for, a world when happiness cost $3 weekly and the game was only ever really over when the fine was due. Next time you pick up an ex-rental game, take a closer look and see where it takes you.
Video Ezy/Your Loan Mortgage Brokers – Narwee, NSW
I’ve written before about the legend of Video Ezy, and much has been written since about its downfall. Gather ’round, kids, and I’ll tell you a tale.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the days of the video shop are long over, with so many titans of the industry falling in recent times.
As recently as 1996, today’s home entertainment climate seemed unthinkable – an era in which an unlimited well of entertainment options is available in one’s own home. Sure, occasionally you’ll spy a lone DVD kiosk, now the pillar of the industry (an industry…), standing unloved in a shopping centre somewhere, but I’m willing to bet very few of you have ever used one.
So neglected by society is the concept of renting entertainment that few, if any, memorial sites exist today for what was once such an everyday part of life. That libraries survived the format war – and continue to thrive today – speaks volumes about how far from grace the video shop has fallen.
But here, in this dark, menacing alleyway in Narwee, the legacy lives on.
Look up and you’ll see a typical example of the de-ezyfication process. Even before the graffiti artists got to it, a more professional job had been done on the “Ezy” part, presumably as some off-brand video shop took up Video Ezy’s old space in those dark later years.
Around the front, you’d never know any of that. Four separate, entirely uninteresting businesses now occupy the huge floorspace you know Video Ezy would have filled effortlessly. If there’s one thing vendors of unwieldy tape-to-tape spools contained in cumbersome plastic cases did well, it’s take up real estate.
On the west side, our quarry is left relatively untouched, and we can see that the building once housed a supermarket as well.
Just for a moment, take yourself back to one of those Friday nights, when someone couldn’t be bothered cooking and there was nothing on TV. You’d head down to the video shop, where part of the fun were the hours it took just to decide on one title (and with the prices as they were, who could blame you?). You’d grab some popcorn because you’ve been conditioned as a corny traditionalist. You’d hit up the supermarket for a bucket of exotic ice cream (which for some meant a Viennetta). And then you’d head home via the nearest fast food joint and ring in the weekend with the biggest Hollywood stars of the day.
That’s right, you didn’t ask for much out of life.
On the back wall, however, an urban Rembrandt tells another story…
..one of community, harmony, and happy weekends full of leftover Viennetta, when you got it the first time or got it free.
Fred’s Video Shop/East Hills Takeaway – East Hills, NSW
In East Hills, an unfinished unfinished thought drifts across the side of an otherwise unremarkable little building. If you wanted to nitpick (and if you don’t, why are you here), you could argue that today’s East Hills Take Away & Bakery doesn’t actually offer any videos, and the sort-of mural outside is nothing but elegantly inscribed false advertising.
You’d be right.
But ask yourself this: do you actually want a video? Because if you do, go across the road.
This shop, or Fred’s, as it’s known to the locals, is the video headquarters of East Hills. If you want 1988’s Black Eagle, 1989’s The Experts, or the double cassette Malcolm X from 1992, and you only want them for up to three nights, you come here.
I can’t help but ask. “So…does anyone actually still rent these videos?” I did it for you.
Fred doesn’t miss a beat.
“Mate, all the time! I had a few come in ‘ere this week even.” He gestures to the videos lining the walls. “They come in, they borrow them, and they bring ‘em back.”
But do they rewind them, Fred?
Fred is 79, and fresh out of hospital. I’d come by the week before and found a sign on the locked door: ‘Closed Tuesday, maybe Wednesday’. It was Thursday.
But now it’s Saturday, and here but for the grace of the video gods is Fred, ready to vend Mr. Bean Volume 1 to whoever hasn’t upgraded to DVD yet. Behind the counter is a menagerie of ancient video posters and promo items, and most startling of all, a dedicated rewinding machine. Be kind, eh?
“But they’re not as popular as the games,” Fred continues with a hint of pride. I think he might be referring to the arcade games in the room next door, standing like terracotta warriors amid piles of random junk, but no. He’s talking about the Sega games.
On the wall are dozens of games for Sega’s Master System console. For those of you unfamiliar, the Master System was released in 1987. Sega exited the home video game console business entirely in 2001. Fred could be the only one in the country still renting these games out, and he seems to know it. When I ask if the games are for sale, he snorts.
“Gotta be joking, mate.”
Uh, which one of us?
Inevitably, I ask about the shop across the road, hoping for a story of bitter rivalry between two video shops during the golden years of the format, something in the vein of Used Cars (available at Fred’s for $3 a night). Not for the first time in his life, Fred disappoints.
“That other shop used to be mine, I moved here about 25 years ago.”
Oh. So what had this been?
“It was a hardware shop, and next door was a newsagent. I got that not long after, and painted it up with me murals…”
He sure had. I’m not sure if decorating is the right word, but his tributes to the Sydney 2000 Olympics…stained the walls of the arcade next door. The piles of junk did their best to cover them, but the damage was done.
Why had he left the neat, compact comforts of the shop across the road?
“The video business just got too big,”
Stifling laughter, I nodded.
“What I don’t get,” he started. Oh, this ought to be good. “is why they left the sign up. Let me tell you, mate, I put the word out at the local school that I wanted a sign painted. A little girl offered to do it and I said righto, she done it, and after she goes, ‘I want three shillings,’.”
Hold on. Shillings? VHS became a viable home entertainment format in 1976, ten years after shillings got the heave-ho. Suddenly, Fred had become an unreliable narrator. Nothing could be trusted. Even my eyes could be deceiving me, I thought, as I eyed the can of creaming soda I’d bought. What had the expiry date been?
I left the shop, knowing there was nothing more to glean from old Fred. I probably couldn’t even get an article out of it. I squinted in the afternoon sun as my eyes adjusted from the dark of the shop, and that’s when I saw it. Just up there, on the pub side of Fred’s building. The remains of a painted sign.
It said ‘HARDWARE SHOP’.
Across the road, the undeniably handsome three shilling work of the little girl caught the sun. I’d been pondering the ellipses following the word. Had it been Fred’s direction, or the girl’s own flourish? Had she even known what a video was?
In the time of shillings, this word brought the promise of a high-tech future to the backwater East Hills, and Fred delivered it. And now, in that very future, he still does.
Where Are They Now? 2015 Edition
As the sun sets on another wonderful year of staring longingly back into the past and more often than not wondering “why?”, it’s time to turn our attention to some of the places previously featured on PLOTNF. In the twilight of 2015, this terrible trio (or terrific trio, if you work there :D) are of interest entirely because they’ve all lost reason for being interesting.
Yes, if they’d have made these changes from day one, we might never have known the surprisingly philanthropic tale of Australian Plastic Fabricators…
THEN
We were attracted by its charitable red nose, and certainly not by its colour scheme. Perhaps sensing this, the APF crew sent around a collection jar of their own and coughed up for a new coat of paint.
NOW
They’re really married to that colour pairing, aren’t they? I wonder how it went down as they rediscovered the red nose during the painting. Did someone recognise it? Was there anyone left from 1995’s management team to say “Oh, that bloody thing’s still up there”? Did anyone make a joke about the boss having a redder nose than the building? Only the building knows for sure, and walls can’t talk – especially when they’re covered in a new coat of paint.
We might never have gone from A to…A with A Helen and her Pavalova Palalice…
THEN
Helen bought too many vowels.
NOW
For reasons we may never know, although perhaps tied to some kind of customer service trouble, Helen has decided to call it a day. Well, actually, if Helen was calling it, it’d be A A Day, wouldn’t it? Or A Aday. Or Daay. Hee hee, I could milk this all daay.
Props to you for finally showing some restraint, Helen, but alas, it’s too little too laate.
And perhaps saddest of all, we may never have known the story of the suburban movie house that became a…suburban movie house.
THEN
Formerly the Padstow Star, a cinema dating back to the early 1950s, Civic Padstow and its team of minimum wage teens serviced the entertainment needs of the area for over 30 years before finally shutting its doors last month.
NOW
The closing down sale was so drastic that even the shelves were cleared out.
Seeing this sad, empty lobby makes you wonder about the thousands of people who would have made their way up those steps over the decades, eagerly anticipating a few hours lost in a celluloid world of fun and excitement. And now that feeling will never exist there again.
Put your hand up if you’re the reason they had to add those disclaimers down the bottom. C’mon, you know who you are. Oh yes? You? Congratulations, you’re an idiot.
The light’s off, the plug’s been pulled, the register’s empty and overdue fees will be waived.
Goodbye 2015, hello 2016 and all the wondrous stories of past livin’ ahead of us. Happy new year, folks.
Past/Lives Flashback #4: Videomania – Rosebery, NSW
Original article: The Marina Picture Palace/Videomania/For Lease – Rosebery, NSW
The Marina, 1941. Image courtesy City of Botany Bay Local History Image Archive.
Sometimes revisiting a place can reveal secrets you missed the first time. Case in point, the rotting behemoth on the side of Gardeners Road formerly known as Videomania. In its glory days this was the grand Marina picture palace, which operated until 1984 – a time when video killed the theatre star.
I tried to get the same angle as above, I really did.
Another place for which time seems to stand still, Videomania remains relatively unchanged since last year. Sure, there are some new posters up along its face and there’s a new cupcake shop in the old bank next door, but the building itself is no different.
We can only speculate as to how long those promo guys were waiting, longing to plaster the front of the place with their posters. I suppose the temptation became too much at some point, much to Jack Dee’s benefit.
Even Leonardo is still there, ever vigilant. And he’d want to be, given the former theatre’s seedy surroundings…
Out the back, I encounter some inspiring graffiti and little else. The place may still be for lease, but they certainly haven’t expended any effort making it presentable.
I’m guessing that vacuum doesn’t work.
Just when I was thinking to myself that there was nothing left to discover here, I found it. It’s something that was probably there last time, but I just happened to miss in the excitement of seeing a Ninja Turtle in the last place you’d expect to see one. See? The gluey remnants still attached to the side appear to vaguely form the word ‘Roxy’, another name this theatre went by at some point in its illustrious life. But that was just the primer. Have a look at this:
Can you see it? Look really closely, and maybe try squinting. Still no good? Okay, let’s get a bit closer…
How about now? The ‘R’ or maybe the ‘N’ should hit you first, and then from there it’s easy. Yes, amazingly, the awning’s decorative ‘MARINA’ lettering has somehow survived, allowing us an even deeper glimpse into the past than it was thought possible. Now all we need to do is arrange a screening of ‘Puddin’ Head’ inside. Maybe we should get in touch with the owners?
We’re in the home stretch now, only three to go. Here’s a clue for the next entry: it’s another theatre.
ROCKIN’ UPDATE: The development-minded Vlattas family, owners of the Cleveland Street Theatre and the Newtown Hub, are currently renovating the Marina with the aim of turning it into a live music venue. My suggestion: keep Leonardo as your bouncer. Thanks, reader Rozie!
Past/Lives of the Near Future 