Ginny Swart, Meadowridge
I just wanted to say how happy I was to see the photos of the former employees of Riviera Fashions and especially the one showing an old Spring Queen photo (“Former clothing factory colleagues enjoy reunion”, Athlone News, February 26).
I worked for the Garment Workers’ Union and we started the very first Spring Queen competition way back when, which was held in the Union Hall in Salt River.
It was so popular that we took the jump and hired the Good Hope Centre and never looked back. We had a lot of fun with wonderful announcers and terrific prizes which were all donated.
The excitement this caused in the factories for weeks beforehand was lovely.
I did the write-up for the events in the factories when they chose their queen and on Fridays I would dash from one factory to the other to get as many shots as I could, and then print them in Clothes Line, which was a weekly publication of the union. It was all pretty amateur but a great time was had by all.
It was so sad when so many factories closed up but it’s good to see that people have happy memories of their times in their factory. I look back on my time as a reporter for Clothes Line with great nostalgia.