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Seeking old pal, Tea Gardens Hotel, Bondi Junction, Sydney, 1999-2000

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 5,561 ✭✭✭quad_red


    MandiT wrote: »
    Hey drywine, thanks for the message! It's too late to invite Phil to the anniversary party we had planned (it was back in January!), but it'd still be awesome if we could contact him! :)

    Very briefly our Phil was on the taller side, towards 6feet or 180cm, but not quite, with short brown hair. Are we on the right track so far?? Obviously having no photo complicates matters, which is unfortunate.

    You mentioned earlier in the thread that you had pics of Phil wearing a top hat and glasses at your wedding.

    Whether they're hard to make out or not, I would strongly advise using them!

    Pictures make a huge difference. Both in terms of helping jog people's memory but also people's willingness to help out and engage.


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    @quad_red. Thanks for the reply.

    Unfortunately its almost impossible to discern Phil in that photo. It's almost like if he wasn't wearing the top hat, you wouldn't even notice him. As it is, it could have been me in the top hot and sunnies, and no one would know the difference!

    If we had a clear head shot photo, we'd surely post it, as that would be more helpful.

    On the topic of engagement (and I'm not trying to be smart here!), after 2 and a half years of this thread, it's been pretty good!

    Some people have had some interesting stories to tell, and a lot of others have offered some great suggestions. One person even spotted one of the Irish girls (Tine) we'd mentioned, in Bondi Junction last year, and only minutes away from the Tea Gardens pub! At 15 years after the event, that's not bad!!

    @drywine, are you still here? Did you see my last post? :) Vebe PM'ed me to say he was having trouble accessing this thread. He said he'd contacted support. So he might have an answer to your question!


  • Registered Users Posts: 12 VeBe


    Been trying to login for a week now, but had trouble. Kept getting a "503 Can't Fetch Server", error, or something like that. After trying a few things, including coming to the local library, where I am now, I switched over to the LEGACY version of Boards, and now it looks like I can post!

    Hi Mandi, hopefully drywine has a lead for you!
    drywine wrote:
    What happpened with you and the girl in the bar?

    Ok, I'll give this a go.

    In short, good question. Lack of communication? A misunderstanding? A couple of misunderstandings? In longer, it goes something like this.

    It was 1am Sunday. I'd left the Teas 10 mins earlier. Was walking down Spring St, stuffing food into my mouth (I'd just left the former kebab shop that was next to the now former NAB) when I heard someone shouting. Didn't hear a word they said (munching on a mouth full of food) but when I looked backed, saw Tine outside the pub. Thought she was shouting out to friends who were on Bronte Rd somewhere. I kept walking. Thought no more of it. Until my next visit. It was obvious something was wrong, when I walked in. She did not look happy at all.

    At first thought maybe it was my general lack of action. Then I recalled her calling out to someone the last time. Surely not to me? I guess if she thought I'd snubbed her, she'd be upset. But I'd not even heard what she said. Besides, I'd been sitting right there at the bar, in front of her, for 2+ hours. Why wait until I was walking down the side street, with my back turned, to speak to me? It didn't make sense. She must have calling out someone else. If I'd known she was calling out to me, of course I'd have gone back. Whatever, she was upset.

    I'm afraid I put myself under pressure to deal with the situation there and then. So I spoke to her, at the bar. Long story short, I didn't really think it through though. So, not too good. There you have it, in a nutshell.


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    I'd also wondered what went wrong there.

    If that's what happened, then that's a misunderstanding. But if you'd left earlier, why'd she still expect you to be outside? As you say, she must have been shouting out to someone else. BUT, it seems like something upset her. A mystery, hey?
    VeBe wrote:
    Didn't hear a word they said
    Never easy when you're down a dark street with your back turned, and chomping on food. I wonder why she didn't just speak to you in the pub then, if she was calling out to you?
    VeBe wrote:
    If I'd known she was calling out to me, of course I'd have gone back
    I have to admit her reaction puzzled me. I'm surprised she took your incomprehension of the situation as a snub! Surely she must have known you didn't realise what had happened?

    Thanks for going to the trouble to reply, with all those error messages and all. I've just realised I'm still using the old site, so that might be why I've never had trouble logging in. So far. Touch wood!! :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 5 drywine


    Hello Mandi, I'm SO sorry to have left you in the lurch! I was getting the same sorts of login issues that Vebe did. All I saw was a blank white screen with something about a 503 error. It was very confusing. Even my husband who knows about IT stuff, was baffled. Vebe said he'd got in through the legacy version, so after much help from my husband again, I got back in here.

    Mandi, the Phil we knew had blond hair! Did your Phil ever dye his hair? From what you've said of him, it sounds like he might have gone for that sort of thing!! But otherwise, we might be talking about a different person. :(
    We may be able track down "our" Phil, and it might be he knew your Phil. If both were outgoing and talked to everyone, and not just the girls lol, it seems logical to think their paths would have crossed at the Tea Gardens.

    Hello Vebe, thanks for the answer. I didn't really expect you to go into the details, but I'm with Mandi, it looks like it was all a misunderstanding. It's always the small things that we trip up on, isn't it?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,561 ✭✭✭quad_red


    MandiT wrote: »
    @quad_red. Thanks for the reply.

    Unfortunately its almost impossible to discern Phil in that photo. It's almost like if he wasn't wearing the top hat, you wouldn't even notice him. As it is, it could have been me in the top hot and sunnies, and no one would know the difference!

    If we had a clear head shot photo, we'd surely post it, as that would be more helpful.

    On the topic of engagement (and I'm not trying to be smart here!), after 2 and a half years of this thread, it's been pretty good!

    Some people have had some interesting stories to tell, and a lot of others have offered some great suggestions. One person even spotted one of the Irish girls (Tine) we'd mentioned, in Bondi Junction last year, and only minutes away from the Tea Gardens pub! At 15 years after the event, that's not bad!!

    @drywine, are you still here? Did you see my last post? :) Vebe PM'ed me to say he was having trouble accessing this thread. He said he'd contacted support. So he might have an answer to your question!

    Start a campaign. Find #TopHatPhil.

    I'm just telling you - no matter how bad the picture is, it will increase engagement. Will increase likelihood of people sharing the pic and story.

    And I'm not being smart but the fact you haven't found him yet means you're going to need to increase exposure and engagement to reach your goal!

    Put the photo up. Whatever you have. No matter how bad it is.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5 drywine


    quad_red wrote:
    #TopHatPhil
    Ah-ha, the ubiquitous hashtag, now there's something I'm more up to speed with! Give me hashtags over Backend Fetch Error Messages, any day of the week!

    You're forgetting something, the hashtag generation will want a photo that leaves nothing to the imagination. No, more than that, they'll want video. No wait, only a GIF animation will do!! ;) If Mandi posts an indistinguishable photo, people will say, without hesitation too, what's the use of that? I know I'm showing my age, but we're talking about another era. In 1999 there was no social media, there was no Facebook, no Instagram, or Snap. There were heaps of mobile phones, but a nary a single one had a camera! On the plus side, there tons of discussion forums, such as this one!

    This is an old fashioned word of mouth situation. This harks back to a bygone age where people communicated face to face, as opposed to burying their faces in the screen of a smartphone, and not even blinking at the person next to them. We met heaps of Irish folk at the Tea Gardens. Chances are we even talked to this Phil ourselves! There must be people who were at the Tea Gardens in those days, who are still around, and reading this. We're going to see if we can find anyone who knew our Phil, and see if 1, we can find him, and 2, see if anyone can put us in touch with anyone else who was there at the time.
    #TopHatPhil
    It's a good idea, but only if Phil wore a Top Hat at the Tea Gardens! Did he Mandi?

    So if we're going to go down the hashtag path maybe it should be #TeaGardensPhilWhoProllyTalkedToYourGirlFriend! That might be more successful at jogging people's memories!!!!! (With apologies to Mandi's Phil, since I never met him!!).


  • Registered Users Posts: 5 drywine


    Hello again Vebe.

    I've been rereading your posts. I don't mean to stretch the friendship, but what did you feel was so horribly wrong about yourself, that you felt you had to keep a distance from the girl? It can't have been that bad?


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    quad_red wrote:
    Start a campaign. Find #TopHatPhil.
    I appreciate your suggestions here.

    We never really wanted to start a full-blown "campaign" to find Phil. Neither of us are that social media savvy, and we have no following anyhow. If such a thing were to gain traction, we'd need to put the hashtag in front of numerous influencers, and hope a couple shared it with their followers.

    It's been almost a year since the anniversary party, that we'd hoped to invite Phil to when I started this thread 2.5 years ago, so instigating a big move now would be a bit late. But make no mistake, we'd love to get back in contact with Phil if we could.
    drywine wrote:
    This is an old fashioned word of mouth situation.
    That's it. Phil had a certain type of very outgoing personality. He seemed to talk to EVERYONE at the Teas, we figured we might hear from at least one or two people who'd remembered him, especially if we posted on Boards!

    We have posted on other Irish forums, but just about everyone in those said to come here (but we already infact had!).

    It can't be denied that he had a presence! Every other guest from our wedding remembered him, even though it was the first and only time most of them ever met him! It stands to reason there'd be people from the pub who remembered him.

    And one such person did come to light, sort of. That was Tine, who worked there at the time. The weird thing there is that Vebe said he'd seen her near the pub, about a week after he posted in this thread early last year, asking if we'd heard from her!

    It'd be great to get in contact with her, as she may know something, and it's possible she still lives in the area (5% of residents in the Bondi Junction area of Sydney are Irish immigrants!), or she has ties to the area.
    drywine wrote:
    #TeaGardensPhilWhoProllyTalkedToYourGirlFriend
    Ha! I don't know what Phil would say about that!

    By the way, no he didn't dye his hair. At least not while we knew him. We might be talking different people. :( Do you know your Phil's surname?


  • Registered Users Posts: 12 VeBe


    MandiT wrote:
    Surely she must have known you didn't realise what had happened?
    Aye. As I remember it, Tine wasn't behind the bar when I left. I glanced around the room, but no sign. Thought maybe she was on a break, or chatting to friends in a dark corner somewhere. I was going to say see-ya/goodnight to her before I left! No desire to avoid there!
    drywine wrote:
    It can't have been that bad?
    You are inquisitive, aren't you? ;)

    Well there is something that I don't know what she would have thought of. Still, you never know. I'd still tell her, if there's the opportunity. I just couldn't figure out a way to talk about it in the Teas. Sorry to be cryptic here. It's as Mandi says, I'd wondered how she was, and lo and behold, a week after I asked Mandi in here if she'd heard from Tine, I see her at Bondi Junction. So it was good to get an answer to my question, so to speak. It's too bad the occasion overwhelmed me a little, but I was surprised, to put it mildly. But she looked happy, which was good.. :)


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  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    VeBe wrote:
    a dark corner somewhere.
    Lol! I didn't know the Tea Gardens had dark corners! I feel like I missed out on something now! :D
    VeBe wrote:
    I'd wondered how she was, and lo and behold, a week after I asked Mandi in here if she'd heard from Tine, I see her at Bondi Junction.
    I wonder if these things happen in twos? Like, I wonder if you'll see her again soon, if she still lives locally?!

    I'm not sure if I'd recognise Tine, if I thought I saw her. I see people I think might be her at the shops there, from what I remember of her, but to start stopping them, and asking, hey are you Tine from the Tea Gardens, is something else. :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1 benjibob


    Seems cool


  • Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭Wanderlust91


    Did you ever find Phil ?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,174 ✭✭✭carrollsno1


    Just seen this thread i gave a good whack of the last year in the teas and never met a man by that name and i drank with a good few of the old school crew there at the time

    Better living everyone



  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    @Wanderlust91 No, I'm afraid not :(


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    @carrollsno1 thanks for your message. Were you at the Teas in 1999/2000? Phil left Australia soon after we married, he was heading to SE Asia. He said he wanted to come back to Aus but I'm not sure that happened. He was on a working holiday visa as far as we know.

    Someone else who posted in this thread said he'd seen one of the Irish girls, Tine, who worked at the TGs at the time, in Bondi Junction just a few years ago. Does that name ring a bell with anyone? Phil used to chat to her, so maybe if we could trace her, she might have some info, or maybe she knows of someone else who does :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭Wanderlust91


    How old would Phil be now ?. Didn't an above poster mention knowing a Phil around this time with friendship connections ?


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    It's hard to believe that in May it'll be 6 years since I started this thread! I wrote back then that we thought Phil would've been about 45, so now he'd be in his early 50's. As far as we know he left Australia in late 2000 and didn't come back. We moved house a bit at the time so if he tried to write to us mail might've gone to an old address and been lost. :(
    Didn't an above poster mention knowing a Phil around this time with friendship connections ?

    Is it @Drywine you're referring to? They said they knew someone called Phil who was at the Tea Gardens around the same time, but I'm pretty sure it was someone else.


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    @Wanderlust, thanks for the PM. Did you see my reply? Boards seemed to crash as I was sending it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭Wanderlust91


    MandiT wrote: »
    @Wanderlust, thanks for the PM. Did you see my reply? Boards seemed to crash as I was sending it.
    Got it, cheers


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,615 ✭✭✭El Tarangu


    Don't know if its been suggested yet, but have you tried the radio show 'Liveline'? This type of thing is right up the host's street, he is always reuniting people with people they knew in London 50 years ago and the like

    joe@rte.ie


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    @El Tarangu, thanks for the suggestion. Someone else suggested another radio show. We emailed them but didn't hear back. The problem is we don't have much to go on. Will give this a try though. :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 2 corkydogo


    Hi Mandi. Did you ever find Phil? I know I'm really late to this party, and I say party because I enjoyed reading through this thread, I'm certain you could make a film from it, with the different people and timelines and missed connections lol. So anyway I worked at Bondi about ten years ago and used to stop off at the Tea Gardens for a few beers before catching the train home. I often was by myself, and often got talking to other people drinking there. Some were this group of "old-timers" (their words not mine lol) who said they'd been drinking there for years, as in decades.

    Now I don't have any contacts info for them, but I remember clear as day the name of one lady who was an "old-timer". Lol, her name was the same as my first girlfriend, so lol it's not a name I'm going to forget in a hurry. Also they were mostly Aussies & Kiwis so I'd say they never saw this forum. I could PM you her name and you could try a search on facebook, or heck I could try since I might still recognise her profile photo. She was always super friendly so if she or one of her mates knew how to get in contact with someone maybe she'd help. Since another poster saw a former Irish barmaid 15 years later at Bondi maybe the old-timers have seen her too, and she might be able to lead you to Phil.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,753 ✭✭✭✭mfceiling


    I would have drank in the Tea Gardens and The Cock and Bull in 2000. Unfortunately I never met Phil.
    I'm genuinely stumped as to how to contact him though. Even in these days of "social media" you need a bit of luck.

    The best of luck!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,935 ✭✭✭6541


    I also drank in the Tea Gardens about 14 years ago - We used to call it the Magical Tea's. You go in and never come out !
    Very interesting thread !


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    Hey @corkydogo thanks for getting in touch. :) Sorry for the delay replying, I thought I'd set up alerts when something happened here, but nothing came through. I better check that out. :/

    Luckily I have a regular calendar alert to check in here every now and again which popped up this morning!

    But no, no luck with Phil so far :( so yes, would definitely be interested in following up on your lead. Feel free to message with me any info you have and we could try messaging the lady through FB and see what happens. If she doesn't know anything, maybe she could point us in the direction of someone else who might!

    Thank you. :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    @mfceiling, thanks for writing in. :) There's no chance you'd have known anyone working there at the time?

    We hunted around on the social networks (in addition to a whole lot of other stuff) but the thing was Phil described himself as "not much of a computer person."

    He didn't even have an email let alone a computer when we knew him! I'm sure that's changed now, but as you say it can still be hard to trace people on social media.

    It comes back to our original contention that it would come down to finding people were there at the time who either knew Phil, or knew any of the crew working there at the time.


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    @6541

    Magical Teas, lol, I like that!! :D

    I know there's people who don't like the Teas at all, but we enjoyed every minute when we'd be there!

    We're not in Sydney at the moment, but look forward to popping in once we return. :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 2 corkydogo


    Hi Mandi, I see from one of your last posts you're not in Sydney right now. Nor am I unfortunately. But if I was, I'd go into the Teas and if the "old timers" were still there, I'd reintroduce myself, and, if they remembered me, explain your story. I think it'd be much easier face to face, especially with someone you know, since it can be awkward doing this sort of thing online. But ‪I’ve found her facebook page and PM'd it you. I also sent my email in case there’s anything else you need. Good luck. If there's anything I can do shout out!! :)


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  • Registered Users Posts: 48 MandiT


    Hey @Corkydogo, thanks for that, very much appreciated. :)

    Yes, I know what you mean about doing this sort of thing face to face verses sending online messages to people you've never met!

    When we were first looking around on facebook for Phil, we messaged a few people we thought might be him. Some people replied, but a lot didn't!

    Still, nothing to lose from trying. :)

    PS: just shot you an email with a quick question!


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