Semi Retired Foamer

FLEMINGS FOOD STORES

My working life started at Flemings Matraville way back in the 1980s.
Even then, I remember the name was being replaced, the bigger/busier stores becoming 'Food For Less', with others just closing, often taken on by other retail outlets.
After some years at Matraville, I developed a habit of following favourite managers around from store to store. During these years, I found myself working in quite a number of different stores.
Matraville - Become a bottle shop, later demolished for new Woolworths.
Campsie - Building still there, think as a chemist.
Mosman - Demolished.
Maroubra - Demolished.
Bexley South - Become Jewels, now IGA.
Waterloo - Now an IGA.
Mascot - Become Clancys, now IGA.
Coogee - Became 'Food For Less', now Woolworths Metro.
Kingsford - Nightfill as a Clancy's. Now an IGA.

Flemings Food Stores Facebook Group

During these years, there was always that cloud of closure hanging overhead. Woolworths was hell bent on wiping out a name that had been around since just after World War 2 (the chain originally opened as E.L. Lakin in 1930).

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Don't be like Channel 10 (Sydney)

My time at Bexley South was limited to a very short loan during a staff shortage. It may well have been only one or two days.
Following closure of this store, the Jewels store to the left (ironically owned by the Fleming family) extended into it. Today it is an IGA.

Being someone who always seeks to photograph stuff that is about to change, I started push biking to numerous stores, visiting manager friends of the time, and taking photos of each (the stores, not the managers).

Never worked in Flemings at Pendle Hill. This day I was visiting a manager friend who had been transferred there. Today it is a 'Woolworths Metro'.
My biggest regret is that I never took many internal shots. However, I did take this video around the 
Ettalong Flemings store. 
I also saved a few souveniers that I am still in the process of trying to locate.

Clancy's (Saves The Day) - Belfield
One of a few Clancy's that were born from old Flemings stores.

Flemings Ettalong (Central Coast)
While not in Sydney, this was a regular shopping location for us on school holidays up at Umina. We would regularly catch the 'Peninsula Buslines' service to Ettalong and stock up on items for the next few days.
Flemings Ettalong Video HERE.
This is now an IGA.
Umina also had a Flemings, it being the third last to close (2010). It was replaced by a Woolworths across the road.

Despite all the expectations that the Flemings name would be gone well before we reached the year 2000, it defied all odds and remained in existence.
Pendle Hill was the fourth last store, rebranded as Woolworths Metro in 2009, Umina following soon after in 2010.
This would leave just two more, Bexley North, which finally succumbed to the 'Woolworths Metro' name in 2017, and Jannali in Sydney's 'Sutherland Shire'.

 Flemings Maroubra was to be my final Flemings store. After many years, and many stores, my journey ended here. However, the interest in the brand was to continue.
Thankfully I have retained a couple of truly awesome friends from this store, manager Julie and storeman John.

Flemings Matraville, the place where it all began for me. I still remember wandering in there for an interview with manager Evelyn Dunn, thinking that I would, 

almost certainly, not be lucky enough.

I was, and thus I set off on many years with the company, made many friends and, too this day, still regularly remember some of the fun moments (and some of the bad).
That bottle shop sold more than a couple UDL cans to me on a Saturday arvos.

The 'Flemings Distribution Centre' was not located far away from many of the stores in which I worked, it being located here in Gardeners Road, Mascot.
That Telecom phone booth is of equal interest. The Telecom name  disappeared from 1995, when they rebranded as Telstra. While, the local phone booth itself is fast in decline.

Clancy's Mascot, formerly a Flemings 'Fabulous' Food Store, is today an IGA.
Despite this being my closest Flemings, it was one I rarely shopped in and only worked in as a nightfiller following the change to Clancy's.

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The End Of An Era

For many years (actually decades) I held a bitterness towards Woolworths for it's treatment of the Flemings branding.
It was a supermarket chain that, for the most part, I greatly enjoyed working for. But gradually you saw stores close, people you knew either out of work or forced to move elsewhere. To this day, I find myself gravitating more towards Coles (who I guess are no better) and Aldi.
This dislike rose forth again two weeks ago, when I was sent an article about Woolworth's plan to crush the last link to 90 years of history, with the closure of the final store, at Jannali, on May 19th.

 For old times sake, last Friday I traveled on down to Jannali for one last Flemings visit. Well, to be honest, other than the signage out front, and the feeling of the building, everything else inside reeks of a Woolworths.
Even my much looked forward to souvenier receipt read 'Woolworths Metro' :-(

 On May 19th, at 9pm, these doors are expected to close for the last time, thus ending 90 years of retail history started by Jim Fleming Snr and George Fleming.
The signage will enter the 'Woolworths Heritage Centre' as a lasting reminder to a grocery chain that once numbered 100 stores (Wikipedia).
However, I can't help feeling a little annoyed that it could not have lasted the final decade needed to reach the full century.

Smiling customers in Flemings stores.
That's how I remember my time in Flemings.
There was something different about Flemings, the staff had more fun and the customers were like family. It was a world away from what you find in the average large Woolworths store in 2020.

The shop was showing some signs of neglect, with Woolies unlikely wanting to invest to much in a store that was likely to be replaced.

Ripped off - I want a Flemings receipt.

There we have it people, the end of another era in Sydney. It seems the Caltex name will be next.

If you worked for Flemings (or Food For Less) you are invited to join our Facebook group.
Flemings Food Stores

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The Fleming family home (since sold) at Blakehurst in Sydney.
Photo: RP Data

TEAM MAROUBRA

Still occasionally catch up for a chat, shared memories and many laughs.

Was so proud to receive this.
But not one mention of our singing with the customers at the checkouts. :-(

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Sharing is fine, altering and removing watermarks is not.

Thanks to Jason Anthony and Greg Davis..