What it was really like working at Brisbane CBD’s iconic Myer store

From keeping customers on speed dial to update them on new fashions to fancy after-work drinks at the posh Lennons Hotel. This is what it was really like working at the Brisbane Myer store during its heyday.

• 90+ photos: Ultimate Myer Centre gallery
• Complete history of Queen St Mall shopping centre

It was November 29, 1965, when Sandra Hewitt walked into the Brisbane Myer store which then stretched all the way between Queen and Adelaide Streets, and kicked off a career in the golden age of retail.

“Light-years’’ had just won the Melbourne Cup, Bob Menzies was still in the Lodge, inflation was running at about 3.5 per cent and Australia was rolling in wealth, with an Aussie dollar worth roughly twice as much as it is today.

Myer Centre under construction between Queen and Elizabeth St in the Brisbane CBD in 1987.

And Myers was taking advantage of the post war boom to carve out a place in the lives of an aspirational Australian middle class, establishing itself as both a cultural and commercial phenomenon.

Nearly six decades after her first day at work Sandra and her former co-workers gathered outside the Myer Centre in Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall on a sunny July morning to mark the end of an era as the iconic superstore prepares to close its doors at the end of this month.

The Queen Street Myer Centre during construction in 1987

“It was just a wonderful place to work,’’ says the now 74-year-old who remembers an employee who not only gave workers Christmas presents, but private health schemes and even a form of superannuation long before the Commonwealth backed super began.

“”They really did treat us well, and I think it was because we respected our employer, and our employer respected us.’’

Myer has been part of Brisbane since 1959 when it bought McWhirters in the Valley.

The present store, on the opposite side of the mall to the first one, opened just before Expo 88 and there is every chance the company will find another location, possibly even in another part of the Queen Street Mall.

Former Myer workers Sandra Hewitt, Maureen Cuskelly, and Ann Martinez, gather outside Myer Centre, which is closing at the end of the month. Picture: Liam Kidston

But the “Myer ladies’’ who still remember the status of the perfume counter (always on the first floor) and customers who wore hats and gloves and incorporated a luncheon into their shopping day, know the retail trade will never again be quite what it once was.

Ann Martinez, who started her Myer career in the 90s in “intimate apparel,’’ moved rapidly up the ladder to be a team leader, flying to Melbourne to examine the latest fashions and keeping her customers phone numbers handy if something she knew they would like popped up.

“It was all about service, known what the customer wanted and trying to make it available,’’ she said.

Jennifer Hawkins signing her autograph for twins Jessica Salaris and Teneal Salaris after a Myer Fashion Parade inside the Myer Centre in 2010.

Ann remembers the perfume counter attendants in Chanel supplied jackets and the sometimes politically incorrect humour and camaraderie which extended throughout the store.

In busy times, like December, top Myer executives including store boss Andrew Vaz would leave their office, appear on the shop floor and ask if anyone needed help.

“”When Andrew turned up he’d say, ‘I’ll handle the cash register’ and I’d say, ‘no Andrew, I’ll handle the cash register, you do the wrapping,’’ Ann said.

A massive crowd at Myer in Brisbane’s CBD for the Boxing Day sales in the 2001. Picture: Lyndon/Mechielsen.

The good humour went right down to the loading docks where the two “Beattie boys’’ who were working their way through uni, kept things running smoothly.

The sons of one time Queensland Premier Peter Beattie were “”absolute gentlemen, just wonderful boys,’’ she remembers.

Former Myer workers gather outside Myer Centre, which is closing at the end of the month. Picture: Liam Kidston

Maureen Cuskelly who grew up in Fiji found Myer an enchanting place to work, quite literally.

Maureen oversaw a budget which could exceed half a million dollars some years to create an enchanted forest in the lead up to Christmas, taking up half a floor to conjure up a Santa wonderland where kids could write their Christmas wishes down on paper and pop them in a box.

“And we would answer them’’ she remembers.

“We’d spend hours writing back to these kids.’’

Work was a social event, and the socialising often continued into the evening after the store closed, with drinks at the posh Lennons Hotel often on the agenda.

Internet shopping is here to stay and suburban shopping malls will continue to draw customers out of the city, leaving the city department store with an uncertain future.

But Myer CEO John King says Myer will not close its back on the Brisbane CBD, but continue to look for alternative locations in the city.