116 VIRGIN AUSTRALIA MAY 2017
CLOCKWISE
FROM TOP Ugg
Australia director
Luda Fishman; the
team behind Lucas’
Papaw Ointment;
the ointment has
become extremely
popular in Australia
and further afield.“My husband made three pairs of boots
at home and I took them to the market.
They sold almost immediately. We knew
then that our business could succeed.
“In 1981, we opened a small factory with
one employee. Within a year, we had 14
people working for us. The business grew
moderately until 1985, when I took a trip
to Surfers Paradise. Our boots sold well to
Japanese tourists, and I knew many Japanese
visited Queensland. Lo and behold, the first
shop I visited ordered $60,000 worth of boots.
“Today, we market our boots around
the world. We’ve opened our own tannery
in Melbourne, which my husband runs,
while I look after the factory.
“My husband is a perfectionist. Every
day he comes to the factory and screams
that I’m doing a bad job — but I treat him
harshly too so it balances out. He’s 70 now
and I’m 65, but I think I’ll be going strong
for another 10 years. After that I hope my
daughter will take over the business.
“These days, many boots labelled ‘ugg’
and ‘Australia’ are made overseas. We use
Australian materials and we’re providing
jobs for future generations of Australians.”Did you use much Lucas’ Papaw Ointment as a
kid? “Absolutely. It was the only thing we had in the
house. Papaw fixed everything. We used to swallow
it for sore throats or upset stomachs. I’d never heard
of Savlon cream or anything like that until I was older
and was shopping for myself.”What drew you, your father and your husband
to the business in the 1990s? “Mum was making
the ointment on her own at that point — it was pretty
much all done by hand back then — and we decided
I should take over from her. I’d been working for
other companies for about 12 years, but in 1994
I fell pregnant and it seemed like a good time to
come across. Around the same time, my dad — who
was a builder — started helping out, too. When I fell
pregnant again, the physical work became dificult,
so my husband let his job and joined us all.”How did you find working with your father at the
beginning? “It was really quite hard. He’s always been
very authoritarian, and was still trying to treat me like
a child, even though I’d worked for many years outside
the family business. But as he’s aged, he’s become a lot
more mellow and allowed me to have my say.”How does running a small family business difer
from working for a larger company? “Working
outside the family business, I was just a number.
And because I’d had that experience, I never ever
wanted the staf who worked for me to feel like that.”Queensland doctor and botanist TP Lucas began
extolling the medical virtues of papaw in 1906. His
formulation for Lucas’ Papaw Ointment has been passed
down through generations and is now used as a topical
treatment for countless minor ailments, and is considered
a cult beauty remedy by savvy shoppers. The family still
manufactures the product by hand in Brisbane, led by
fifth-generation member Lynette Swinglehurst, who took
over from her father, mother and maternal grandmother.(^4) LUCAS’ PAPAW OINTMENT