By Mikayla van Loon
For nearly 50 years, Siggy McEvoy worked for the Coles supermarket chain but with the closure of the Kilsyth store, she decided it was time to retire.
First starting as a casual at the Mountain Gate store when she was just 16 years of age, Ms McEvoy moved up the ranks to work full time before jumping across to the Kilsyth store five years later.
“I just enjoyed it, so I just stayed with them,” she said.
Ms McEvoy said in those early days it was a lot more fun and herself and her colleagues, although they were more like friends, would close the store while listening to records playing over the sound system.
“We used to actually sell records and record players and we used to play records over the PA system.
“There were half a dozen of us in the apparel, sort of general merchandise department and we used to play tunnel ball at the end of the day when we’d finished doing all our work. So we had fun like that.”
But perhaps the best memory to come from her time working at the supermarket was the day she met her husband Terry.
Over time things became more business-like as technology advanced and things became computerised.
“All the ordering was done manually. All the pricing was done manually. So it was more time consuming than probably what it is now,” Ms McEvoy said.
Working at Kilsyth, being a smaller store, close to retirement and aged care homes, Ms McEvoy said she came to know many of those who shopped at the store regularly.
“Some of those people came in every day, it was a daily part of their going out and about and you see them over the years,” she said.
“They always wanted you to be their friend and so you made friends with people you really didn’t know.”
For many of the residents that have shopped at the Kilsyth store for many years, Ms McEvoy said, she thinks they will struggle now it has closed.
“Even last week there was actually one elderly customer and she said ‘I’m going to be really sad when the store closes’ because she goes, ‘I can do my shopping blindfolded I’ve been in here so often’.”
The Kilsyth store was open for something like 49 years, a pillar of the small community and an easy shopping location for those who found the larger supermarkets overwhelming.
“There was a gentleman the other week that said to me he moved to Mooroolbark but he won’t shop there because it’s too big and busy and he’d rather come to Kilsyth because he just finds it more relaxing and an easier place to shop.”
Ms McEvoy was given the opportunity to move to a different store in the local area but instead she decided to retire.
“I was really looking forward to finishing the last three years and clocking up 50 years there but then when they were closing, I thought it’s not going to be the same. I’m not going to be with all my close work colleagues and so I just thought ‘this is it, go out on the high’,” she said.
Some of Ms McEvoy’s closest friends have come from her time working at the supermarket and she said those friendships were essential throughout the pandemic.
“You work eight to nine hours a day with people and with Covid, you relied on each other to keep each other safe and working on.”
In the days leading up to the closure on Sunday 13 February, Ms McEvoy said there were a few tears from everyone, both happy and sad.
Although not the end to her 47 years she was hoping for, Ms McEvoy said was looking forward to spending more time with her four grandchildren.
