Winns Store Reunion Employees from the Winns store in Fairfield share their memories of the area, customers, co-workers and the environment they worked in.

Florence Callicott: ... it was a magnet to you know, Villawood and Cabramatta and all those places, people would come in for, if there was a fashion parade on or whatever. And it was... in the early days of the post-war migration and we had a lot of staff from Cabramatta hostel which was mainly people from the UK at that time and of course you'd have a lot of shoppers as well. But it was also the beginnings of the Italian migration and I think… I think that had a big influence on us as a store. And, as I say, in my department they'd be going for these flash, you know, big table settings with X number of serviettes and everything. And to a large degree — and I know it's quite often still the same in that culture, because we went into business later and it was still the same when we were there — was that they were a bit curious to know what so-and-so had spent because they needed to spend at least as much.

Marilyn Oshana: Competition.

Florence Callicott: Yes, like if there was a wedding on. If there was a wedding on — you knew there was a wedding on if you worked in certain departments, Thora probably found the same in the crockery department. And it was sort of… they didn't necessarily have to win the competition but they didn't want to be under what the other person had spent. And so if you'd had one good sale, you had a fair idea you were going to have a couple of more good sales, you know.

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