Unlocking potential of a mobile business alternative

Walking to and from their portable locksmithing van, filled with sliding cabinets of programmable keys, traditional keys and lock-picking utensils, the pair manage to get the ironclad box's locking bolts to retreat.

Its contents were unknown, but as the door hinged to the right, they uncovered century-old dust and the remnants of an envelope and cream-coloured ribbon inside.

Local historian Pat Raymond said the original builder of the memorial, Thatcher, had the idea to install the safe to keep photographs, records and medals of those returning from service.

She said the ribbon would have held them together neatly.

The locksmiths said being called to locations wasn't out of the ordinary, something more common since the building they had resided in for decades was no longer their head office.

Bega Valley Locksmiths had its final day at its Merimbula Airport shopfront on Wednesday, April 10.

"Going with the times now, can't make any money at the shop because everything's mobile," Clint said.

"[The physical shop is] cost prohibitive for us at the moment, a couple of grand a month to hire the shopfront, whereas we're on the road 90 per cent of the time.

"They can't bring their lock to me if they're locked out, so most of our business at the moment is all out and about, at people's properties, their houses, their cars, commercial businesses."

Graham Eves, stalwart and previous owner of Bega Locksmiths before his daughter Renee and partner Clint purchased it off him, said he had been a locksmith since 1988, 19 years of which had been in a building on Arthur Kaine Drive.

Previously owning Lakeside Sound Record Bar in Merimbula, Graham said he had got to know the original locksmith before he purchased the business off him and began the trade.

In all that time he joked he'd been searching for the key to life and James Bond's key to everything, yet his son-in-law was able to find the key to his daughter's heart.

"Then in 1993, my son Damean joined me, he left school and wanted to be a chef, and I said, 'You've got until the first of January, if you're not a chef by then, you're a locksmith," Graham said with a smile.

"So he's still a locksmith."

Later, Graham's daughter Renee followed in the family footsteps, before she and partner Clint purchased the business, and Renee's son Mereki Eves-Jones joined the team.

He recalled safes so crammed full of money they were difficult to open due to the pressure, and a caravan storage location in Merimbula that kids had managed to break into, and Graham was tasked with fixing the lock of a caravan with mirrors across the ceiling.

"I'm still involved in locksmithing, I'm still the NSW chairman of the Locksmith Guild of Australia, I've been in the guild since 1989, and I've been president for the last 15-16 years," he said.

"But other than that it's been a great game, great life, people who work in the area, live in the area, it's a great town to work in. My wife said I can retire when I turned 80, so I turned 80 and I reckon that means I've retired," the now 81-year-old said with a laugh.

Renee said she would miss the highway trade, but shared the travelling business model was not dissimilar to what they currently do alongside the airport.

"We are mobile all the time, it was just we had a base, but basically we're always on the road. It's been a family business and it's still going to be a family business," she said.