In 1986, aspiring young lawyer Patrick Duffy saw for the first time the historic Campbelltown Court House.
He was doing work experience at the time but Duffy now heads his own legal firm, Duffy Law Group.
Last week, after popping in to what is now Court 1 for the first time since 1986, the legal eagle took a photograph to show the rest of us what a beautiful old court room we have in our town.
Duffy says the building has been there since 1889 and there was a court operating on that site from 1827.
“The fact Campbelltown had a court/public building then is why it exists today, basically,’’ says Duffy.
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♦ And while on historical matters, during a chat with a Kentlyn property owner recently he recalled how he had to gift five acres to Campbelltown Council when he sought to rezone the 30 acres he owned in the 1980s.
They wanted it for runoff into the Peter Meadows Creek system, he said.
Indeed the council lot is still there, surrounded by five acre rural living properties.
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♦ Two of the oldest businesses in the Campbelltown CBD are Attz Hair and Campbelltown TV Repairs.
Tina and Tony have been cutting and styling locals’ hair for almost 30 years, while Harry Mitchell has been repairing our old TVs for almost 40 years.
Their premises are a stone’s throw away from each other, but they never really met each other.
Fast forward to the beautiful city of Florence in Italy last year where Tony and Tina were holidaying at the time.
This sort of familiar figure approaches and says to Tina, don’t I know you from somewhere?
Long story short they had a chat and now can say hello to each other in Queen or Dumaresq Street when they bump into each other.
“But it’s incredible that we were so far away in Florence when we actually met each other for the first time,’’ says Tony.
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♦ Up the other end of Queen Street, the Alkalizer café is making its mark as the newest culinary hotspot of the Macarthur region.
Located next to the entry of the Campbelltown Council, Alkalizer may be out sight but it’s not out of mind as more and more locals discover its delights.
Indeed its secluded location away from the madding crowd is fast becoming an attraction in itself.
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♦ Before we leave the business world we should tell you about a local operator who may need to go back to business school.
It’s all hush hush, so please don’t tell anyone we told you about this, but apparently this shop owner has complained to the leasing agent that he doesn’t get enough customers.
But it gets worse: this corporate genius apparently parks his car right in front of the shop all day because nobody gets booked in that part of the Campbelltown CBD.
As our source pointed out that parking space is intended for shoppers so maybe that’s affecting trade, for starters.
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♦ All media outlets received an email from the Police Media Unit earlier this week about the Traffic & Highway Patrol’s worst 10 suburbs for speeding. We are pleased to report that no suburb in the South West made the list, so let’s move on.
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♦ It was almost 15 years ago but young Campbelltown newspaper photographers Luke Fuda and Chris Lane were rising stars in the Fairfax Community Newspapers stable.
Indeed they were two of my favourite photographers during the golden years of the Macad – the Macarthur Advertiser.
So it was nice to receive a photo of the two of them at Liverpool Hospital last week with Max A’costa, who works there and also happens to be my son in law.
No longer as young as they used to be, both practise their art around here, Luke in a private capacity while Chris still works for Fairfax.
