FRIENDSHIPS made over the decades at Giovini’s Wedderburn factory were renewed on Saturday.
More than 50 former workers at the textile factory came together and their stories had others in stitches.
Helen Lloyd spent 11 years on an overlocking machine.
“I made many friends and we always managed to have a good laugh,” she said as the reunion headed from the Wedderburn Hotel luncheon to tour the former factory that has been restored as a private residence.
Making dressing gowns kept many young women employed at the factory but Helen also remembered when Giovini made shorts for Australian soldiers. “That kept us busy for a while.”
Jenny Martin, who was on staff for 16 years, remembered mastering the hardest part of the dressing gowns. “Before we closed down, I was mainly doing the collars,” she said. “Definitely the hardest bit to do.”
“There were about 40 of us when we closed down. I then went to work for Jockey at their factory in St Arnaud ... stayed there until I retired.”
Jenny said pay day was her favourite day of the week. “We did piece work and the more we did, the more we were paid.
“Guess they couldn’t afford us any more and closed us down,” she laughed.
The Giovini closure was one of a string of shutdowns in country towns across Australia in the years after tarrifs were removed by the then-Federal Government for the textile, clothing and footwear industries from 1974.
While a predominantly female workforce, there were men on the payroll as drivers and maintenance staff. Graeme Watts started at Giovini when he was 16 and after five years was transferred to the company’s headquarters in Sandringham.
“I’d still be up from Melbourne a couple of times a week when there was a breakdown of equipment,” Graeme said. Helen and Jenny were quick to recall Graeme in the factory. “Gorgeous Graeme we called him.”