Time toles for a Dapto institution

ROD WISE

After 28 years serving her local community, Mrs Lynette Hendriks is closing her craft shop, Dapto Knit & Sew Drapery Centre.

Ill-health plus a slow, steady decline in the public’s need for fabric and garment skills – a reflection of the general trend towards “off-the-shelf” living – have been the driving forces behind her decision. It is a decision that comes hard, as she has always enjoyed craft, having exhibited her handiwork at various shows, including Sydney’s Royal Easter Show where her paper tole has been highly commended.

But more than offering a commercial service to the people of Dapto, Mrs Hendriks has also played a very discreet role in providing an important social outlet for many people living in the area.

“I have been holding two-hour craft classes on four mornings a week,” she said, “where we teach skills like patchwork, paper tole, bead knitting and jewellery.”

Yet the classes, have attracted their share of hard cases over the years, she said. She recalled one time, when a woman at an evening class came wearing a large wristwatch which she examined incessantly. “Suddenly, she got up and left the class without any explanation.

“When she returned to her next class a week later we found she had been timing her contractions and had left to have a baby at 3.00am the following morning.”

However, many of the people who have come to the classes are isolated and lonely, she said, and “this is their only outlet during the week. In many cases, this is the highlight of their week.”

Mrs Hendriks is so conscious of the importance of her craft classes to some local people that rather than putting her feet up in retirement, she will be continuing them at her Horsley home.

As to how she got into craft in the first place, Mrs Hendriks puts it down to the influence of her mother who was a sewing teacher at Lake Heights Public School for 30 years.

When her own daughters left Kanahooka High School and were more able to help her, she opened Dapto Knit & Sew, first in Bong Bong Road for 18 years, and then, when the Dapto Medical Centre site was redeveloped, at the present premises in Marshall Street.

Mrs Hendriks has lived in the Wollongong area since she was 10. “We came from Leura in 1957,” she recalled. “There was no work there at the time, so we followed Dad when he got a job at the steelworks.”