A FORMER Bunyip newspaper employee has shared a spectacular dress find decades after the random discovery.

In the 1980s, Kay Boon uncovered a calico dress, with pages from the August 18, 1916, edition printed on the material.

Uncovered from a pile of rags in a disused, upstairs office of The Bunyip, Kay saved the unique dress from its imminent disposal.

“The Barnets were refurbishing the advertising department upstairs and they had to strip everything out to put new carpet down, and I happened to wander in,” she said.

“People were pulling these old rags out to use as drop cloths for painting and there was this dusty, grey-looking rag there that had The Bunyip on it.

“I pulled it out and realised it was a dress and I asked Craig Barnet ‘what’s that?’ and he said it had belonged to one of his aunties or great aunties, either Flo or Emily, and I commented it was quite beautifully made.”

Flo, Ruby and Emily Barnet were the daughters of newspaper founder William Barnet.

“Craig said it had been made for one of them for a benefit concert for World War I, but we have never been able to find out what benefit concert or who wore it,” Kay said.

“He said, ‘you can have it if you like, otherwise we will probably throw it out’.

“I am involved with the Two Wells melodrama and I appreciated that it is a unique garment, so I tidied it up and aired it out.”

Evidence of both hand sewing and treadle machine stitching is incorporated throughout the dress, along with a blue silk ribbon trim.

“I could wear it – it’s about a size 10 for someone of my height, which is short,” Kay chuckled.

“The HMAS Gawler had a freedom of Gawler celebration in1989 and I think I wore it to that as well, but there’s no photographs of me wearing it.

“At about this time last year, I brought it to the girls at the Gawler Heritage Centre who said they would love to have it, so I donated it to the museum.

“I thought it needed to be somewhere that people could appreciate it.”

The dress also has sentimental value for Kay, who met her late husband Mark Boon at The Bunyip back in 1987, who was the senior journalist at the time.

Kay was filling in as a journalist for Craig Barnet when he went away on long service leave, and again when John had leave, and Craig stepped up to be acting editor.

The Bunyip dress is currently in storage at the Gawler Civic Centre and may form part of an upcoming CWA display.