Mrs N. Prior Clothing/A1 Cut Price Flowers/Nothing – Kogarah, NSW

They don’t make ’em like this anymore. Once upon a time, a Mrs N. Prior saw an opening in Kogarah’s manchester, childrenswear and babywear market. The enterprising Prior secured this corner location, bought out Berger Paints’ supply of aqua and got to work.

But that was a long time ago, and the babies clothed in N. (Nellie? Nora? Noelene? Nancy?) Prior’s stretch nylon babywear are all grown up, or possibly dead.

Who was N. Prior? How and why did her little shop come to an end?

The building itself, slowly rotting on the corner of Rocky Point Road and Austral Street, offers few clues as to its post-Prior life.

At some point, the cut price flower community, long jealous of Mrs. Prior’s prime corner location, swooped in and established A1. Banking largely on customers looking up flower shops in the phone book and being too lazy to scroll past ‘A1’, the shop doesn’t appear to have lasted very long. Business mistake number one: they left all of Mrs. Prior’s decor up on the building. Nobody likes a lazy florist, A1.

6 responses

  1. This is now a coffee shop called The Naked Barista.

    1. The shop on the other corner wa the coffee shop.

  2. Her name was Norma Prior. I remember visiting the shop with my mother in the mid 1960s as a preschooler and seeing Mrs Prior.

    1. Netta Prior is my mother in law. Her name is Netta Marion Prior. She left the shop on the 70s I think.

  3. I lived there with my mother Netta Prior who had the business 1958-1972.

  4. My name is Bob Prior and along with my sister I lived with my mother Mrs Netta Prior until 1972. My mother was a loving caring single mother. She was much loved in the local community. She was an expert knitter and had ladies coming from all over to buy wool, patterns and get her free advice. Netta Prior retired after the opening of Roselands changed the way people shopped. She moved up to the Blue mountains and lived into her 80’s.

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