A BENDIGO institution is fixing its last cars before it closes forever at the end of the week.
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BTB Accident Repair has been a port of call for motorists when something goes wrong for half a century. At times has boasted as many as 140 staff members.
Nikki Rundle's dad was one of the business partners who founded the business in 1969 and has been running it with her partner Dean.
"Closing this place down sucks," she said.
"I am so attached to this place that I get emotional talking about it. But it is 100 per cent time to say goodbye."
Nikki and her brother Scott want to sell the Wood Street, Long Gully site but plan to spend two or three months sifting through 50 years worth of documents and equipment amassed there.
"I don't know what we will find even in dad's cupboards - the ones he used before he passed away," she said.
"Who knows, I might find the blueprints from back when the business first started, back when this property was vacant. Those types of things would be the special finds."
The property, like much of the surrounding neighbourhood, was developed over the postwar period.
In many areas of North Bendigo and Long Gully, people can still dig down to grey mining tailings that were leveled out to make way for their homes.
Nikki can remember, as a very young girl, the dirt and scrub that covered BTB's site.
The future of the land will depend on which group takes it over next, Nikki said.
'You realise that life is short. That's what frightened me'
She and Dean had decided that now was the time for them to bow out of the industry.
In the last four years, they had lost Nikki's mother and father and fought to keep the doors open as the pandemic wreaked havoc on businesses across the world.
Nikki is incredibly proud of getting through the pandemic but is still processing her mum's sudden loss.
"I had time with Dad, we'd had discussions because we knew he was dying, but Mum's is one I can't get over," she said.
"If anything, that kind of loss really wakes you up. You realise that life is short. That's what frightened me."
Nikki's parents had always told her that she should only keep the business going while she and Dean had the passion to do it.
"They knew the business was never going to be passed on past me," she said.
"I was always happy to be with Mum and Dad, running the business. They were pretty special people. They were loved around Bendigo."
Now, Nikki and Dean say it is time to end the era.
"It's a good healthy business but we don't get time to stop. We are 51 years old and our last holiday was 10 years ago, for two weeks," Nikki said.
"So we've worked constantly for a decade. Before that, I had had four weeks off to have my kids. That's all I've had in 26 years."
Perhaps Nikki and Dean will go on a holiday. Maybe they will "just relax and breathe," Nikki said.
'This is a dying trade', but young people can change that
Nikki said broad industry changes were making things trickier for businesses like hers. Bigger groups were moving in.
That said, if there was one thing she wanted an article on BTB's closure to do, it was to let young people know how amazing the specialist tradespeople on the company's shop floor were.
Nikki had seen it become harder over time to find young people willing to take the plunge and learn those skills.
"The kids don't seem to want to get dirty anymore. They want to sit by a computer and earn a thousand bucks a week," she said.
"But it doesn't work that way. You have to start from the bottom and work your way up, unfortunately.
"This is a dying trade and it's really, really sad."
Nikki urged any young people who came across this story to take up an apprenticeship.
"They should feel what it is like. Those qualified panel beaters and spray painters out there love their jobs," she said.
"Telling them we were closing was the hardest thing," she said of the announcement nearly a month ago.
Nikki and Dean had already been scaling down staff members in recent years but a core group of eight remained.
She and Dean had reached out to other businesses in the hope of helping them as BTB closed.
"These guys are great," she said.
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