Two women who have shared almost one hundred years service at a Co Donegal company have finally ‘signed off.’
In their century of service, Ita Daly and Eileen Bradley have sold literally millions of pens, pencils, copybooks and all sorts of stationery at Donegal Stationery in Letterkenny.
Ita and Eileen finally said an emotional farewell to fellow staff in Letterkenny yesterday evening.
Hundreds of townspeople arrived at the store at Lower Main Street to share memories of the shop from the last five decades.
Eileen, who had only been taken on to cover two weeks in Christmas 1966, said she never regretted a day at work.
“I have always loved working here and I always loved chatting with people and having the craic. I will really miss it,” she said.
Eileen admitted that herself and Ita fell out from time to time but it was only really “bickering.”
“We had to fall back in together because we had to look at eachother everyday,” laughed Eileen.
Having started off on £3 a week, Eileen remembers using a wooden cash register and having to water the floor to keep the sawdust down.
Her favourite memory is wrapping up to one thousand parcels for Santa each Christmas when he visited the store which was then located at Toyland, where Voodoo now stands.
“They were good times and it was so exciting seeing the joy on the children’s faces,” she added.
She has no plans to do anything wild in her retirement but will be taking part in her usual early morning aqua aerobics session in the local leisure centre early on Monday morning.
Ita said she too is looking forward to her free time but has one ambition she plans to fulfil.
“I have never learned how to drive so I might just do that. I just want to send out that message to the people of Letterkenny to take care because I might be behind the wheel soon,” she laughed.
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