NEWS that Target is closing its doors has sent one Mount Gambier resident on a trip down memory lane as she retells the story behind the department store’s history.
Former employee Irma McDonald recalled her four-year stint at the Ferrers Street store ahead of its foreshadowed closure.
Ms McDonald was among the first employees at the store and worked in the goods receiving area during her tenure.
After reading about the looming closure in The Border Watch, Ms McDonald delved into her collection of photograph albums and found an image of what she believes to be the first Target Mount Gambier staff photograph.
“I collect a lot of things and I remembered I had a photograph of us all at Target when it first opened,” she said.
“This photograph must have been taken in either 1973 or 1974, because my daughter was only a baby when I started at Target.”
According to Ms McDonald, her team worked in a small shed in the back of Jen’s Hotel while the store was being constructed in the early 1970’s.
“When I got the job, they told us about the Target history and we were ‘store 44’ across Australia,” she said.
“But in Mount Gambier, it was really a store that was the first of its kind,” she said.
“We did not really have any big department stores that sold everything in the one place.
“It was clothing that was the biggest seller, but we had a lot of other sections.
“Records were a big section and there was even a garden section at one stage.”
Ms McDonald, who still frequents the store to this day, highlighted a number of notable differences between the retail giant now compared to the golden age.
“The interior has changed a lot and there are some sections that are no longer in the Mount Gambier store that used to be popular, like haberdashery,” she said.
“We used to sell a lot of fabric because people would make their own clothes back then.
“The toy section was nowhere near as big as it is now.”
However, she said some products withstood the test of time and remained a popular staple.
“We used to sell a lot of Bonds singlets,” she said.
Ms McDonald said she was sad to see the store close, but grateful for the memories.
“It was a really great place to work and everyone really enjoyed it,” she said.
“We used to do a float in the Christmas pageant each year which was fun.
“Everyone worked well together.”
