It is with great sadness that I am writing this articl for Newsfour to say goodbye to my many, many friends, great customers and fellow traders.

I first opened my shop in October 1986. From the very first day of opening the ‘craic’ began. As all of you who know me know that I call a spade a spade and wouldn’t be long in telling you to “get out” of the shop.

Many people have commented to me over the years that they call to the shop for abuse and entertainment.

And so the last 20 years have flown by for me, I have loved being part of Sandymount village and I will miss it very much. I am finding the last few weeks very emotional and hard to hear people say they will miss me and what are they going to do without the hardware.

The phone doesn’t stop with callers asking me why. People calling into the shop all day long, some as upset as I am. I even had a good lady customer saying she was getting a petition to stop me closing!

I appreciate it all so much, it means a lot to me to think I was that popular and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I would like to thank Declan and Vincent who have both worked for me for a number of years and I wish the both well.

Everyone wants to know why I am retiring but I’m much too young to retire altogether, I’m just going to try my hand at a few new adventures– you know the saying ‘a change is as good as a rest.’

Again I would sincerely like to thank you all so much for making my shop a great success for the last 20 years.

And lastly I would like to thank my lovely wife Jacky and my three kids Keith, Ian and Sophie. “At last daddy is home.”

Above: David with Vincent in the shop.

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