THE crowd was thinner this year and there was more talk of people "passing on" but the family atmosphere was as strong as ever.
Former employees of the old St George County Council meet every year to catch up and relive the old times.
For those too young to know, the county council was the electricity supplier set up in 1922. It operated from a main office at the site of St George Bank in Montgomery Street, Kogarah. By the time it was dissolved in 1979 in favour of amalgamation, it employed about 600 people.
In the in-between years, electric power had moved from something that housewives switched on with a wooden spoon so the shock wouldn't travel up their arm, to something taken completely for granted.
The person to go to for the details is Reub Deacon, the keeper of history and the preserver of memorabilia — and the organiser of the annual reunion.
Mr Deacon was the one who insisted that the original foundation stone be relaid outside St George Bank and that photos, an honour board and other bits and pieces be kept at Kogarah Library.
Mr Deacon, 83, was an experienced electrician when he joined the council in 1954, and by the time he left 35 years later he had trained about 10 apprentices a year.
"They called me Father Confessor because I used to bless their jobs," Mr Deacon said, demonstrating the Catholic hand blessing.
While the gesture signified that the apprentices had done their job well and there wouldn't be a "one flash and you're ash" occurrence, clients often thought that Mr Deacon was blessing their appliances.
They truly were the good old days, Mr Deacon said, because everyone was family, and that wasn't just a nice concept but actual fact as young employees married each other and later got their kids to work there as well.
"After amalgamation the family part changed," he said. "People were sent all over the place, separating that togetherness."
Although the reunion numbers were down — "no one's getting any younger" — to many of the electricians, Mr Deacon was still the star of the show.
"I was a 16-year-old school drop-out when I went to work at the county council and I was very lucky to have people like Reub to look after me," Peter Hoycard said.
Do you have fond memories of St George County Council?