28/05/2026
RALPH'S QUEST TO SHARE MAKING, MANUFACTURING AND REPAIR SKILLS WITH THE YOUNGER GENERATION
Long time ABC Gippsland listener Ralph (from Licola) Barraclough is on a mission to bring lost manufacturing and repair skills back to the community.
Calling out to fellow retirees who know how to make, engineer systems, repair and restore things, he is hoping to create more opportunities for young people to learn self sufficient practical skills.
As an industrial sewing machine mechanic with over 50 years experience himself, Ralph got into sewing after designing a backpack which converted into a stretcher chair and tent- a design which became a finalist on ABC TV’s Inventors program in 1973.
‘I brought an industrial sewing machine made in 1893 which I still have, and I’ve used ever since’, he said.
He then got into manufacturing camping gear in the 1980s, spending two years at the Melbourne College of textiles night school.
He attributes much of his resourcefulness, salvage and repair mentality to good mentors, attending Sale Technical College in the 1960s, and later spending a decade mining industry.
‘Working in remote areas, if anything went wrong and you didn’t fix it, we didn’t get home’, he said.
As one of a handful of industrial sewing machine mechanics left in Australia, Ralph is passionate salvaging old sewing machines from landfill, having collected numerous antique machines over the years.
Although he concedes that that the quality of sewing machines declined after the late 1970s, with less durable, cheap, imported models with inbuilt obsolescence flooding the market, he believes that most machines can be repaired.
He said many machines are tossed out for having a damaged needle plate, a $15.00 part which can be easily purchased online.
In his recent workshops teaching students how to sew on his ‘simple to use but tough as nails’ antique Singer machines at Wollangarra Outdoor Education Centre in Licola, Ralph was encouraged by the enthusiasm of the students to learn to sew and design their own textiles.
‘They do a wonderful job at Wollangarra teaching woodwork and other things to groups, the sort of things we need school kids to learn again’, said Ralph.
Ralph is now hoping to pack his beloved sewing machines into his 1971 Land rover, and run sewing machine repair workshops at Men’s sheds and repair cafes around Gippsland.
With little manufacturing left, and the nation largely dependent of imports shipped in from overseas, he said that the fuel crisis had re-ignited the conversation on the need for home grown skilled makers, manufacturers and repairers in Australia.
Now in his late 70’s, recognising that many of his own mentors have passed on, he would like to see other older retired tradespeople volunteering to teach skills to the younger generation.
‘It’s just a question of where do you do it and how do you do it?’, said Ralph.
Wollangarra’s one place where we can do some of these things, but I’d like to see it in other places too.’
