Long journey

THE emotions triggered by closing their business after 30 years are still raw for Ray and Irene Bassett.

The couple are shutting up shop at Chilwell Office Supplies after failing to find a buyer for the well-known Pakington St business.

Asked what she would miss, Mrs Bassett could not help but shed a quiet tear.

“You are going to get me going now,” she said as she wiped her eyes.

“It’s the people, it’s the staff; it’s the community here.

“It’s a great bunch of people.”

The Bassetts have seen their ups and downs in athe office supplies business, which last week notched its 30th year.

The Pyramid collapse in 1990 hit hard in the early years of the business.

“We kept going, we had loyal customers,” Mrs Bassett said. “Our creditors said, ‘Pay us when you can’.”

She said customers would also offer to pay immediately rather than on account and some in food businesses would offer them food.

“That is the difference in Geelong; it is a community,” Mrs Bassett said.

She said the couple worked tirelessly without making money for two or three years.

“I was working (at a bank), I had to give that up because I couldn’t afford to pay for anybody here,” Mrs Bassett said.

“Whatever I was earning was going to the staff, which made no sense.”

Hard work and working long hours was the key to business survival.

“It took a long time to recover, but we stuck it out, we did it, whereas most people didn’t, they walked away,” Mrs Bassett said.

As times improved, Chilwell Office Supplies had about 800 regular business customers on the books, taking over the adjoining office for a dozen years.

“We have customers we have had from day one still with us,” she said.

Personalised service and the ability to deliver almost any required stock within four hours were keys to the growth.

Mr Bassett said 30 years ago there were up to a dozen independent stationery supply businesses in Geelong, but now there were only two.

And in recent times the business started to feel the effects of increased use of technology.

“Where people used to use diaries, now they use electronic devices,” Mr Bassett said. “Where we sold 1000 diaries, we might only sell 100.”

For the couple, who have no children, the business has been their life.

A 21-day holiday to the US in 2007 was their biggest voluntary time away from the business.

Mrs Bassett said she and her husband had been working together, day in, day out, for 36 of the 40 years they had been a couple.

“People are amazed we have been together and worked together that long,” she said.

Chilwell Office Supplies, at the southern end of Pakington St, is having a sale, with all stock to go before it closes its doors for the final time at the end of the month.