Iconic Canberra Centre employee Helen retires after five-plus decades in retail

You know the one.

She’s in the fragrance and cosmetics section of David Jones in the Canberra Centre, wearing a petite black dress and sporting an immaculately cropped black bob.

Pretty much all of Canberra knows exactly who I’m talking about.

With only brief excursions over to its rival store of Myer (or as it was known then, Grace Bros), Helen Patchell has worked the same job since 1969.

But after 55 years, she signed off for the last time on Saturday, 2 March.

Her daughter, Tennille Threlfall, describes her as the sort of person to shrink from attention, and sure enough, when I catch her at the start of her 12 pm shift the day before, she’s hoping she’ll be able to sneak out without too much of a farewell party.

“I’m just hoping I can slide in and out,” she says.

“I’ve got to retack and think what can I do now, but I’m sure I’ll find something. I’ll be 75 in May and I would have liked to have gone to 80. I think I could have.”

Helen’s family moved from Sydney to Canberra when she was 16 years old.

“Believe you me, we cried for days – months even … It was very, very country, but it was very safe.”

Her father worked for Avis, a rental car company, while her mother was a full-time carer for her and her siblings.

Three years later, Helen walked into David Jones – an anchor tenant of what was then known as the Monaro Mall – with her CV, fresh from a hairdressing apprenticeship.

“They were very obliging and put me on wigs, because of my hairdressing,” she recalls.

“And the way they used to train you – they didn’t just throw you in – they started you off with something small and … we had the older girls to give us all the shortcuts. It was amazing.”

Since then, she’s worked on “most of the counters” first in David Jones, until she paused to have her and her husband’s first child, and then Myer (including attending the opening of the Myer in Charleston, near Newcastle), before landing back at David Jones again.

She remembers every Friday night, when the escalators would be “packed” and there would be “cash, cash, cash everywhere”.

“The mall was the only thing we had back then.”

She says today’s customer numbers are a dribble compared to those early days.

“I mean we’re all living a very hectic lifestyle and a lot of people don’t have any other way, but we all used to be so flat out and now just look at it.”

Over the decades, she has served several generations of families who remember her serving their mum 20, even 40 years earlier. The nickname of “the lady with the black hair” stuck.

“I think the hairstyle’s quite distinctive,” she laughs.

Another change is the rise in shoplifting, which has partly led to her decision to leave.

“It’s shocking the way shoplifting has taken off, and it’s precipitated my going, because someone’s going to get hurt soon,” she says.

“Weekends are bad.”

Helen lives in Palmerston, in Gungahlin, today. Her husband died six years ago of cancer, which leaves her and her two kids, and their families. Or as she describes it, her “other family”.

“Look, I’ve loved every moment of this job,” she says.

“It’s been another family. I love the people contact.”

The colleagues she started with have all since either passed away or moved on, but she does see still a few of them who are now well into their 80s.

“It’s like the end of an era now, and what’s ahead – I’ve got to really pull my finger out. Sometimes people plan. I didn’t. I walked in, I gave it a shot, and that was it.”

We know you’ll be missed, Helen.