1.10.1964
Rex Bramleigh's top-grade oil painting of Mr. Jones has been framed, varnished and delivered to Warrnambool.
Yesterday, Jim Doonan (Chairman, Pleasant Hill Junior Board) presented this to Horace Verey (Production Manager) for safekeeping, on behalf of F.J. Staff everywhere. Mr. Verey said that it gave him very great pleasure to accept responsibility for the trusteeship of this valuable work of art. Jim Finnigan and Neil Symons supported Mr. Verey.
Reduced scale copies have been faithfully reproduced in colour - all stores and factories will receive a framed copy. In acknowledging the gift, Mr. Jones expressed sensitive appreciation of the heart-warming gesture of the combined staff everywhere.
Continuing, Mr. Jones said that his wonder at the thought that the staff would ever have thought of such an idea and then to have commissioned such an expensive painting had "bowled him over".
"This was the last thing in the world I would have thought would have happened to me," said Mr. Jones. "At first, it embarrassed me terribly," said Mr. Jones - "I thought how egotistical it would be for me to agree to sit, but I lost a lot of this sensitiveness immediately I became absorbed in watching the artist at work. I will now try and live up to the very kind things Jim Doonan, Horace Verey, Jim Finnigan and Neil Symons have said."
The gathering included members of both Junior and Senior Boards of Directors and Representatives of all stores who were in conference in Warrnambool. The painting will soon be hung in the main canteen.
