General News
16 November, 2023
Blast from the Past: Margaret Lovett
On the third Friday of every month, join long-time Maryborough and surrounds residents as they reflect on days and industry gone by in The Advertiser’s new profile series. In an unassuming store in Maryborough, there is a four-year-old girl...
On the third Friday of every month, join long-time Maryborough and surrounds residents as they reflect on days and industry gone by in The Advertiser’s new profile series.
In an unassuming store in Maryborough, there is a four-year-old girl dressed in a pink tutu, playing in the shop her late great-grandmother bought 65 years ago.
This family business — Eileen’s Frock Salon — is arguably one of the town’s most successful businesses, although its owner Margaret Lovett would never suggest that. She’s very modest.
The shop is one of just a handful to have been operating for so long in Maryborough’s retail district.
Four-year-old Penny has got the day off kinder, so she’s spending some time in the shop. A rite of passage for children in the family.
Margaret’s mother, Eileen McKee, bought the shop in August 1958 from a Mrs Grocock.
The family had moved to Maryborough from Warragul when Margaret was 10.
When Eileen bought the women’s clothing store, it was at the premises at 79 Nolan Street where it remains today.
“We lived here on the premises for quite a few years,” Margaret said.
“Dad rigged up a shower and beds and it was just a little room and then we had our play area out the back.
“It was good. It was only my brother and I and we were brought up here.
“And I’ve brought up all my children in here. They’ve all slept out the back right through, Craig, Katrina (who is Penny’s mum) and Melita.”
Margaret worked in the shop as a teenager on Saturday mornings and Friday evenings.
She remembers on Fridays a lot of women who worked at the knitting mill would come to the shop.
“The mill girls used to come up. The Friday night, they’d come up the street a herd of them sort of thing and they’d come in and pay their 10 schillings or whatever and we’d have a card system which we’ve still got and they took the goods and just paid every week when they got their pay. So that was really good.”
Margaret attended 2828 Primary School and then Maryborough Tech.
She didn’t go straight into the family business after leaving school, instead working for a year at Gilbert’s Newsagents.
“Then I was approached to work with F N Bucknall and sons on the corner of the AMP building so I did the AMP society which was insurance as well as farm businesses accountancy, because I did do accountancy at school. Then I decided to come into the business,” Margaret said.
That was 50 years ago.
Margaret’s mother worked with her daughter in the shop for a time while Margaret had her children.
Eileen passed away five years ago, aged 92.
“People say would you change it (the name of the shop) and I say no, I need to leave it the same. It’s just been known. We’ve got clientele from everywhere. Some people have just come from Ballarat [on Tuesday] and had a big buy-up and that’s what we get,” Margaret said.
The store gets customers from Melbourne, Ballarat, St Arnaud, Maldon and Castlemaine. And they aren’t people who have previously lived in Maryborough.
“A lot [of the business I get] is word of mouth and generations. I think you tell people if you’re happy and you can get something you want,” she said.
“They say ‘we’ve heard about you’. They like their personalised service. We do a lot of prosthesis for breast cancer ladies. I’ve done that for 40 years.
“I think it was a Ballarat breast care nurse rang up and asked me if I would like to do it. And then the company Amoena, they came and saw me and it just started from there.
“That is so rewarding. To make someone so happy when they come in and they walk out and think ‘look at me’ you know it’s really good I love that part of it,” Margaret said of helping women who are going through breast cancer.
In her 50 years in business, Margaret has witnessed a change in the way people shop.
“Where years ago the farmers would come in and they’d [the men] stand up on the corner and chat and the ladies would go shopping with their hats and their bags and everything,” she said.
“Where now people are not walking around and shopping as much as what they used to.”
Margaret isn’t quite ready to retire.
“Because I’m getting older I just feel it’s probably nearly time. Because (my husband) Geoff’s home I probably need a little bit of time with him but I just love what I do and I just can’t make that decision,” she said.