Bouzaid and Ballaben plant auctioned off

The sewing room at Bouzaid and Ballaben has fallen silent since the Greytown plant shut up shop in April, but yesterday the man synonymous with Swazi could still hear the old machines chattering away.
"You walk up and down these aisles and you can still hear the laughter coming from the workers and the machines going flat tack," Swazi chief executive Davey Hughes said.
Mr Hughes made the two-hour journey over the hill from his famed Levin plant hoping to snap up a few of the old machines during a mass auction at the factory yesterday.
Among other items in the 522 lots were two vans, chairs, computers, kitchen equipment, appliances, electric tools, a roller conveyor - and even a mannequin named Anne, which went under the hammer for $120.
The top price of the auction was a Pathfinder fabric cutter that sold for $25,000, while a selection of sewing machines sold for more than $6000 each.
While Mr Hughes' interests were mainly commercial, he was still keen to preserve a piece of history from a business he had always thought was the country's best textile plant. "I considered it New Zealand's flagship factory, as it was known for its efficiency, productivity ... just a huge amount of excellence."
That made the news of parent company Lane Walker Rudkin's liquidation twice as hard to bear, he said.
"At that point I knew things weren't going to be that rosy for plants in the North Island. We thought we had it hard last year - well we're going to have it hard this year."
While Mr Hughes was along to bid, many former employees treated the day as an opportunity to take a final stroll through their old workplace and catch up with past colleagues.
"It's a good chance to see all our old mates," said Molly Simonsen, who worked almost every machine in the sewing room, including old binders, flat seamers and a Pegasus overlocker that took 12 weeks' training to master.
Training new workers was the task of Nola Mangin, who before retiring a decade ago worked in all facets of the firm, even turning her hand to being a part-time sewing-machine mechanic. "I think over the years I did basically every job that needed to be done."
Also there was Maurice Hurst, who retired as managing-director of Bouzaid and Ballaben several years ago after 28 years service.
He started at the factory as production supervisor, later became production manager then general manager before moving into the top role as managing-director. His wife Lesley also served 18 years in the office and later in management.
Auctioneer Bryan Andrews was "delighted" with the 200-plus turnout, as well as the amount of money the day raised, which he could only report was a "substantial sum" and would go to the liquidators.