THE world of news never stops and so it was that in the wild and woolly pre-dawn of April 21, 2015, Lyn Lowe hopped into her car to deliver newspapers to her Newcastle city clients.
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"There were garbage bins everywhere," she recalls of the super storm that roared across the Hunter. "When I got to Fenton Avenue an electrical wire came down in front of me. I got back to the shop and said, "Never again!"
Ms Lowe will put meaning into those words when she closes Newcastle CBD Newsagency for the final time on September 1 after 18 years of trade. At 64, she's ready to retire, the changing retail world in part forcing her hand.
"There's no security in print [media] and there's a push for online gambling, card sales are now more online and Officeworks and Coles and Woolies have taken over the back to school merchandise, which used to big for us," she says.
Ms Lowe has been the face of the city newsagency near the corner of Hunter and Bolton Streets since her family took it on in 2001. According to Newcastle journalist, author and historian Greg Ray, the news-stand outside the old Newcastle Post Office (Bolton Street side) was established in 1919 by a returned soldier Aub Searle. He sold it in 1933 to another veteran, Norm Brown, whose son John ran the business until it finally moved in 1973. Ms Lowe's newsagency, on the opposite corner, is the inheritor of the business.
In 2001, she recalls a bustling CBD with David Jones and a raft of government departments in city bunkers.
Initially she was in store at 230am when the Newcastle Herald was printed at Beresfield. When production shifted to Sydney she came in at 4am. She has traded Saturdays and Sundays, always armed with a smile.
"People come in to report their news, some have come in crying and I've taken them out into the back room, " she says. "We've had at least 20 pet deaths, suicides in families and the normal births, deaths and marriages."
The 2007 Global Financial Crisis was a low - "So many people came in in tears having lost their job with houses and cars to pay back, some lost their entire super". Other notable mentions: the Pasha Bulker disaster, the 2001 Knights premiership, the city rail closure.
As "keeper of many secrets and wiper-away of many tears", her customers have kept her in the job: "I love interacting with people, being there to listen to the good and bad. I'll miss it."
Paying tribute to her staff who have supported her, Ms Lowe is looking forward to time with her family, including her first grandson, Teddy.
Ms Lowe's farewell is at The Grand on August 30.
Newspapers, Lotto and Opal cards will be sold at the convenience store next door.