Ann and Roger Bourke hand over Moxon's Bakeries in Armidale to new owners Paul Packham and Lisa Hardman

The well-regarded locals have decided to retire into a life of overseas holidays and campervanning bliss after doctors gave Roger an ultimatum following two stress-related heart attacks.

"The doctor told us it was either get rid of the business or not have a husband," Mrs Bourke said.

"So, my daughter Megan, Roger and I made the decision that we're better off to have a father and a husband than a business,

"We put it on the market and sold within six months."

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All three Moxon's Bakeries will remain open, with the Bourke family's secret pie, pastry and cake recipes being passed on to new owners Lisa Hardman and her husband Paul Packham.

The fourth Moxon's Bakery on Beardy Street, a smaller Grab'n'Go joint, shut its doors in May after the building was sold and the Bourkes decided not to renew their lease.

Mr and Mrs Bourke said the population of Armidale have been very good to them throughout the years, including their own staff.

"The Armidale people have always backed us from day one, right from 1980," Mr Bourke said. "My hat has always been to the locals who've been amazing. Even through Covid, they were always very courteous while coming and going."

"But we miss the interaction with staff," Mrs Bourke said. "Because we always got on well with our staff. Although we still come in and annoy them and say hello."

All staff will continue in their roles at the bakery, with the current manager Craig Cornwell and their daughter Megan Bourke, a marketing degree graduate, doing a great job helping the new owners with the seamless transition.

A 17-year-old Roger first met 14-year-old Ann while chopping wood for the wood-fired ovens in her parents' bakery in Binnaway, employing him as an apprentice there in 1976.

"Ann was a champion swimmer as a kid," Mr Bourke said. "And I used to think, 'God, she's crazy going off to swim in the frost of the morning'. But I didn't know then that I was going to marry her."

Ann's parents, Pat and Arthur Moxon, moved their bakery to Armidale in 1980, and the couple bought the Faulkner Street shop 12 years later before on-selling it as a sandwich shop in 1994. But it closed down a couple of years later under the new ownership.

Meanwhile, Roger and Ann expanded the Moxon's Bakery business to a second location at 36 Marsh Street in 1993. With business booming, in 2002 they built the big bakery at 248 Mann Street in an industrial area of Armidale where tradies, passers-by, parents on their way to and from school pick-ups and drop-offs, would stop for a quick bite to eat.

The third Moxon's Bakery is also expected to continue under the new owners where it has been operating at 208 Beardy Street for the past 10-15 years.

The Moxon's Bakeries today are wrapped in a symbolic lick of pink paint to represent breast (and other) cancer awareness, in memory of Ann's parents who both passed away from cancer.

"Ann's parents were the most beautiful people in the world," Mr Bourke said. "They retired at 60. And were both dead at 63."

"They made us promise, especially mum, mum was the last one to go," Mrs Bourke said. "And she said, 'promise me, don't do what we did,'... they worked very hard."

Before the sage advice was given to the pair, the Bourkes clocked-up 14-15 hour shifts doing jane-and-jack-of-all-trades at their bakeries, from deliveries to serving in the shop, maintenance and more.

"When we were both in the business, we'd be like ships in the night," Mrs Bourke said. "He'd be going to work when I was coming home and vice versa."

Mr Bourke said his two heart-attacks were brought on by work stress-related thoughts about "bits and pieces" and "about the world", even though the business was going well.

"So we decided to take on the doctor's advice about it being better if I just got away from it. So, I'm doing well now. So it is good.

"But we're probably happier now than we've ever been because we're actually doing things together more and more."

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