29-07-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Millworkers' reunion a celebration of friends
Twenty-five years after more than 150 jobs were lost at the closing of the Mataura paper mill, two retired boilermen are holding a reunion to reconnect.
Ex-boilermen Ray Hannah and Graham "Noddy" Harris are hosting a reunion not to focus on the loss of industry, but on the strong friendships made along the way.
"It's just a chance for people that haven't seen each other for a while to get together to have a chat and catch up," Mr Hannah said.
"Because you made some pretty invaluable friendships through that workplace."
Mr Hannah started working at the Carter Holt Harvey Mill in 1979, when he was 21, and Mr Harris came on board four years later.
Both were with the mill up until it closed on August 18, 2000.
With two machines running, the mill produced copy paper and wallpaper backing. It was also known for its specialty Mataura Falls bond paper.
"We were renowned for our Mataura Falls pulp, one of the best papers that you could get," Mr Harris said.
The copy paper used pulp from overseas. The cost of importing it and then exporting the finished product from the bottom of the country was too high, he said.
The cost of import-export, plus globalisation, shut down the mill.
"The Asian market killed it basically," he said.
Mr Hannah said he was in denial about the closure at the time and when told they were having a final meeting, he just walked by thinking it was a joke.
The wages at the mill were so high, no-one ever wanted to leave, Mr Harris said.
When it shut down, he remembered people were worried about where their next job would come from, with over 150 people looking all at once.
Everything worked out in the end and Mr Harris went straight down the road to work for Fonterra, he said.
"Everybody found work, that wanted work," he said.
Mr Harris also remembered the 1984 flood, that affected the river-side mill, as well as a fire in 1987, that was reported at the time as destroying $2 million of pulp.
After the '87 fire The Ensign reported police in Gore believed it had been deliberately lit.
The reunited workers will hopefully be reminiscing the good times, more than the bad, Mr Hannah said.
"It's more about rekindling friendships and stuff like that, just reconnecting."
The Carter Holt Harvey mill reunion will be an afternoon tea held at the Gore RSA on August 23, at 1.30pm, with light snacks and speakers, including Jeff Rankin, manager of the mill for some years. Cover charge is $10 a head.
