Open 7 Days 25. Wanaka Store

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

WANAKA STORE
78 Ardmore Street, Wanaka, Central Otago.
Proprietors: Dave and Iris Gillespie.

Wanaka is the lake: a magnificent glacial aqua-sculpture that thrusts deep into the heart of the Southern Alps and points the way to the grandeur of the Haast Pass and southern Westland beyond.

Wanaka is one of those fortunate resorts that works as well in winter as in summer, with the consequence that there are always visitors as well as residents to make life busy at the store.

It was started in the 1870s by Robert McDougall (a legendary figure who had a kind heart as well as being postmaster, justice of the peace and registrar of birth, deaths and marriages) to supply the diggers at the Cardrona goldfields. It was taken up later and rebuilt by D.W.Jolly.

A storekeeper had to stock everything imaginable then, and Jolly’s carried men’s and women’s clothing, horseshoes, nails, picks, spades, pans, basic foods and patent medicines. They baked bread, too, and delivered to Luggate, Albert Town, Hawea Flat and Makarora. Right up to the 1950s, Wilson Bros., the then owners, were still carrying on in the same way.

The Gillespies bought the store in 1981 and started a self-service and check-out system. But tradition dies hard and the Wanaka Store, whose Four Square paint can’t hide its sturdy lines, still serves as a meeting place and information exchange for the townsfolk.

The tourist launch Ena De is pink by design, and the question I heard a local wit call out is obviously a standing joke: ‘When’re you going to give it its top coat?’

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 24. Korner Shoppe Reefton

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

KORNER SHOPPE

169 Buller Road, Reefton, West Coast.
Proprietors: Trevor and Cathy Brewerton

I first saw this store in November 1987 on the day that two sign writers were painting it red. I had the impression that if someone didn’t stop them they’d paint the whole town red! It wouldn’t have been the first time; the toughest gold miners in the world have been through Reefton!

Just before the Brewertons took over the store in September 1989, the previous owners won a bit back from Coca-Cola by adding two remarkable murals, one depicting a red-shirted miner resting on his spade, and the other the pioneer goldfields landscape all set about with flying ingots.

It’s a large, rambling building that has been extended over the years, but the shop itself is quite small. The range of goods for sale includes frozen and chilled foods, milk, bread, soft drinks and dry groceries, augmented at the weekends with fresh fruit and vegetables. A large range of videotapes is available for hire.

This surprisingly old building was established as a butcher’s shop in 1870 by John Charles Heslop. It later traded as ‘The City Butchery’ and continued thus with various owners until it closed down in the Depression. The owner at that time was a Thomas Lamberton, and he continued to live here with his mother, who ran a maternity home then later turned to making confectionery on the premises; jelly babies perhaps?

Old trolley from a Reefton gold mine 

A photograph of the store taken in 1948 shows it much smaller, trading as a milk bar (all the rage in those days) and book club, but by 1960 it had been extended, and was trading as a general store.

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 23. Granity Store

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

GRANITY GENERAL STORE
102 Torea Street, Granity, West Coast.
Proprietor: Daryll Watson with Roz McNeilly

It’s a tough coast hereabouts, a narrow strip of sand and shingle, the restless Tasman Sea on one side and the steep, largely trackless bush behind.

In the hills that block the rising sun from the store there’s a treasure of coal. While it maintains Granity’s economy now, it could, in Daryll’s opinion (and no doubt many of his neighbours) lead to real prosperity if, ‘some large conglomerate could get stuck in and mine the coal on a serious basis’.
The majority of the people of working age who live in Granity are employed in the few privately owned mines or the vast open-cast state mine at Stockton. The Granity Store supplies them with milk, bread, postal services and all general household needs including the weekly Four Square specials.

There are also tearooms, which Daryll, a carpenter by trade, built himself and he and Roz are currently establishing a fish-and-chips takeaway.

Roz says the visitors’ talk in the tearooms is usually about the beautiful scenery of the Heaphy Track or nearby Charming Creek, with its spectacular waterfall, bridge and tunnels. The locals, on the other hand, deplore the ‘pounds’ of whitebait that leave the coast! Well, they can’t eat them all, can they?
Granity was named by gold miners from the large granite rocks in the area. A short distance north of the town is the mouth of the Mokihinui River, where once stood Kynnersley, site of the last of the big West Coast gold rushes of the 1860s. The town was washed away in 1867 and nothing is left except ghosts.

If you can stand the sandflies and the weather, you can still do a bit of gold prospecting around Granity. Daryll or Roz will sell you sandfly repellent before you go and fish and chips and a cup of tea afterwards if you feel you’ve had enough!

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 22. Karamea Hardware Store

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

KARAMEA HARDWARE STORE

Market Cross, Karamea, West Coast.
Proprietors: Bill and Marg Heath

Langfords Store at Bainham and Karamea Store are at opposite ends of the Heaphy Track: sixty kilometres as the crow flies. Yet they could be world’s apart, separated as they are by the rugged and remote fastnesses of the Tasman Mountains.

The store was built in 1915 across the road from its present site. It was shifted in 1920 and enlarged somewhat, but you can still see the original part if you look carefully, it’s the right-hand side from the front doors to that false gable on the corner above the windbreak netting that protects the plants for sale.

Bill and Marg took over in 1979. They previously lived in Glenavy on the Waitaki River, until Bill happened to see the store advertised in the newspaper his lunch was wrapped in. They felt it wouldn’t be a bad spot in which to bring up their three kids, and they’ve never looked back.

In some ways the store has come a full circle, because it started out as a post office and in 1988 became one again. It used to sell general groceries, and up until late 1989 was still selling meat and bread as well as hardware. That seemed to confuse visitors, but the locals found nothing strange in buying a bag of nails and a kibbled-wheat loaf! These days the stock consists of hardware, clothing, gifts, toys, gardening supplies, haberdashery, veterinary and farming goods, postal services and local crafts; and if there’s something you want that they haven’t got, they’ll get it.

Community notice board.
 

Karamea enjoys a freak mild climate, which helps lure visitors in large numbers. But on occasions you can join the local dairy farmers and experience the thrills of being cut off from civilization. Power breakdowns are not unheard of, neither are snow falls in the winter, and there’s only one road in and out of Karamea - unless, of course, you fancy walking the Heaphy Track!

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 21. Inangahua Junction One Stop Shop

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

INANGAHUA JUNCTION ONE STOP SHOP
Main Road, Inangahua, Buller.
Proprietors: Pam and ‘Taff’ Tawhara

This is the youngest general store in my collection. The building was a garage for forty years until, in September 1989, it became the all-encompassing store it is today.

Hoia Apiha ‘Taff’ Tawhara comes from Coromandel and is of Ngati Porou (East Coast Maori) origins. He and Pam met when they were both in the NZ Army’s 1st Battalion, in which Taff served tours in Malaysia, Borneo, Vietnam and Singapore. In 1984 they bought the small Inangahua Store and Tearooms a bit farther down the road, but later acquired the garage, sold the old building and combined both businesses into the present ‘One Stop Shop’.

The first garage was built in 1920 by Tom Southon, but was rebuilt in 1950 following a destructive fire, then taken over by Tom’s daughter, Fay, and her husband, Johnny Stuart. It was then the district agency for Atlantic and Mobil products, and Johnny used to deliver fuel as far afield as Karamea and the Stockton mines up near Granity.

After Inangahua’s devastating earthquake in 1968, a lot of the old identities moved out. But Pam insists that the old values have remained; the community is close-knit and comfortable while staying aware of the outside world. ‘The kids here… seem more open, bright and cheerful. The adults are more “laid back”… having time to chat… and help each other in times of trouble. Perhaps a lesson for the world.’

For some inexplicable reason, Inangahua is visited by disproportionate numbers of German cyclists, who, professing not to read English, used to lean their bikes against the store’s pristine paintwork. Pam fixed them: she speaks German!

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 20. The Old Tua Marina Store

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book. 

THE OLD TUA MARINA STORE
Tuamarina, Marlborough.
Proprietors: John and Gabi Muir

Old New Zealand hotels have something in common with Texas courthouses - a tendency to be burned to the ground. That’s what happened to the first building on the site of the Old Tua Marina Store. The two-storey tavern went up in smoke in 1904, and the store dates from that time.

John and Gabi Muir met at a birthday party in Tuamarina in 1974, when John, an Australian, was staying briefly in the neighbourhood while on a hiking tour. Twelve years and three children later, they were visiting the old town from their home in Australia when they discovered that the store was up for sale, so they bought it there and then.

These days this obviously cherished old building trades as a gift and craft shop, serving teas and refreshments. It is also the post office, which means it continues to be a centre of community affairs. Between 1905 and 1983 it was a general store in the fullest sense, and the decision to turn it into the kind of business it is now was occasioned by extensive damage caused by major flooding of the local rivers, the Wairau and the Tuamarina.

The famous ‘Wairau Massacre’ happened here in 1843, when a posse of settlers led by Colonel Wakefield tried to arrest a Maori party, under the command of Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, in a land dispute. The Maori won. The incident is commemorated in the hilltop cemetery and across the road from the store in a rest area by the tranquil Tuamarina stream.

The Main Trunk railway connecting Picton with the south passes the store. ‘In these more peaceful times,’ Gabi writes, ‘the train engine drivers often stop at the crossing and dash over to buy one of John’s New Zealand-famous pies - the ones with the money-back guarantee!’

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

My Generation

 I think that ours is probably the luckiest generation in all history. I was born in 1933, ten days before Adolph Hitler took over in Germany. I was 7 when the second world war started and lived in South London. Although our area was heavily bombed and later attacked by V1s and V2s I survived. I was 12 when the war ended and VERY street wise!
But by the time I was conscripted to join the RAF in 1951 the war was well and truly over (even though food etc. was still severely rationed). Although the Korean War was in progress, National Service conscripts were not sent to overseas theatres of war. Lucky me.
Before then, I left free grammar school at fifteen in 1948 without any qualifications and yet I was not held back in my career. As a commercial artist, then writer, then, later, manager and shareholder of an advertising agency in New Zealand I had nothing but opportunity thrust at me. When I 'retired' in 1990, bought out by an American company, I was able to come home with a fair treasury; enough to see me and my wife and family through to the end.
After 1990 I wrote and illustrated books, about 23 of them, all about New Zealand; except for two 'sex and violence' novels.
I have benefited from antibiotics, a superb health system, stabilizing drugs, leading edge surgery (prostate, heart, shoulder re-construction, gall bladder and appendix removal). I have benefited also from a society that placed more value upon ability than birth, social status and money. Although I didn't, many of my contemporaries went to university free of charge and gained enormously from that gift.
In my lifetime our species has invented the jet engine, transistors, computers, MRIs, space travel, television, the mobile telephone, microwaves and so many other new things that we all take for granted.
We've been married since 1955: for better or for worse (it turned out much better than I expected!) I am now 77 and have just returned home from a long walk round my property feeling fine.
As I said, I think ours is the luckiest of all generations. That of my children and grandchildren will be so much harder - but I wish them well in a world of international unrest and uncertainty; they deserve to be as happy as I am.

© DON DONOVAN. Photograph © Gillian Shrank
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 19. Langfords Store, Bainham

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

LANGFORDS STORE

Main Road, Bainham, Collingwood.
Proprietor: Lorna May Langford

Langfords Store is the jewel in the crown of Open 7 Days.

Although not the oldest shop in the book, it’s the one with the best pedigree. With ageing dignity, it exemplifies the whole tradition of country general stores.

Its preservation is due to Lorna Langford and her sense of family history. She traces six generations to Wales and the marriage of Richard Langford to Mary Price in the first decade of the nineteenth century. One of their sons, John Alfred, born in 1815, arrived with his wife, Harriet, at Petone on 22 January 1840. She was the first settler woman ashore from Aurora, the first of the immigrant ships.

The Langfords settled in the Takaka area, from where Lorna’s grandfather Edward Bates Langford and his bride, Eleanor, moved in December 1900 to farm at Bainham. When Lorna’s father, John Edward, took over the farm in 1924, E.B.L. became Bainham’s postmaster and, largely because the government of the day was too miserable to fund a new post office (for an estimated £148/6 shillings) he founded Langfords Store in 1928.

He was, as Lorna proudly describes, a man of many parts. Deeply involved in community affairs, an unqualified part-time vet and surgeon, comforter of the sick, Sunday school teacher, amateur musician, horse trainer, cobbler and repairer of harness and canvas, he also found time to study carnivorous snails and to print invitations, labels and butter wrappers on the press he set up in the old post office, now destined to spend its remaining days as a work- and store-room.

E.B.L. died on 25 July 1959. Lorna had taken the store over from him in 1954 (she had already been postmistress for two years). Thus the store has passed through only two hands since its establishment.

Lorna has spent her whole life at Bainham and has a deep, sentimental attachment to both the shop and her neighbours.

Langfords Store supplies general goods, groceries and postal services to about thirty-eight local families and itinerant gold prospectors. In summer the tourist traffic becomes an important source of trade. Some visitors come to Bainham especially to see the store, others are passing through from the Heaphy Track, which starts a few kilometres south and connects trampers with Karamea on the West Coast. I noticed that the hikers’ bus from Collingwood more often than not passes the store without stopping. That’s a shame because the visitors are unwittingly deprived not only of a remnant of a fast dsappearing New Zealand but also of Lorna’s cat, Panda, who sleeps in her own special spot in the shop window and appears to challenge Lorna’s ownership of the store.

Langford’s Post Office

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 18. Te Horo Store

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

TE HORO STORE
Main Road, Te Horo, Horowhenua.
Proprietors: Alan and Ann Stead

The Te Horo Store is the reddest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s far redder than the ‘The Korner Shoppe’ in Reefton. It’s almost as if a secret ingredient had been stirred into Coca-Cola’s reddest-of-red paint especially for Te Horo. It glows like a red pepper at the peak of perfection.

Since 1988 the store has been the postal delivery centre for the area, and it also supplies dairy products, groceries, fruit and vegetables, newspapers, magazines and petrol.

It’s hard to imagine that Te Horo once boasted four stores, a dairy factory and a cheese factory. Like all the little settlements up the Horowhenua coast, it was much affected by the railway that ran like a life force between Wellington, Levin and points north. In 1990 the store probably seems more isolated than it really is; a quick stop on a long, straight, frightening piece of highway, where much of the traffic exceeds the speed limit.

Alan and Ann Stead have been at the store since 1977, having moved a few kilometres south from Levin. Alan estimates the Te Horo Store to date back to about 1910, and although the shop front has obviously been modified, the style of the modilions under the eaves at the side of the building, and the residential portion at the rear, would confirm that date.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 17. Waverley Fruit Supply

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

WAVERLEY FRUIT SUPPLY

39 Weraroa Road, Waverley, Taranaki.
Proprietors: Rob and Colleen Hayman

With pinpoint precision, Rob Hayman dates the establishment of his shop as 20 October 1916. It was a Loan and Mercantile stock and station store and continued as such (although later owned by Dalgetys) until 1971, when it was turned into a fruiterers by Parbhu Patel.

Patel - nicknamed ‘Boxer’ - was one of Waverley’s characters. He was particularly famous for a very potent curry powder of his own blending, which is still sold in the Waverley Fruit Supply to gourmets who pop in for it from all points of the compass. ‘Boxer’ Patel lives in Huntly now, having sold the store to Rob and Colleen in 1988.

The match-lined inside walls of the store and the front verandah are original, but the thing that appealed to me most was the colour scheme, which owes nothing to Coca-Cola or Four Square - it came straight out of paint pots of Rob Hayman’s choosing.

Since 1977, when the Haymans moved here from Taihape with the Post and Telegraph Department, Rob has built up a horticulture business growing export melons for Japan and other crops for the local market. This dovetails neatly with his Waverley Fruit Supply, and no doubt accounts for the high quality of the produce.

Creative spelling!

Waverley is a peaceful little town, but there was a particularly nasty battle in the district during the Maori land wars of the 1860s. The town was called Wairoa then, and remains of a redoubt can be seen just along the road from the store.

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 16. Tokomaru Store

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

TOKOMARU STORE
Main Road, Tokomaru, Palmerston North.
Proprietors: John and Noeline Selby

Tokomaru, sandwiched between the Manawatu River and the western slopes of the Tararua Range, has the air of a town that will live for ever. The Tokomaru Store certainly adds to that. It’s original, having once survived a suspicious fire through the prompt arrival of the town brigade, although it no longer has the dark, tongued-and-grooved interior that older residents often recall. Neither does it need to sell as wide a range of goods as it did when Tokomaru was more isolated.

This thriving rural community benefits from its closeness to Linton Army Camp, Massey University and various engineering and agricultural enterprises. The town attracts visitors to the Tokomaru Steam Museum and the passing traffic on Route 57 - a pleasant link between Levin and Palmerston North.
Noeline and John Selby, who used to have a city plumbing business, moved here in 1988, for a quieter life. Six months later they’d added the now-popular takeaway bar (through the side door under John’s superbly painted rainbow), and life is now busy enough for them to enlist the help of their three young children, Cassie, Adam and Rose.

Tuppy Schwass, who was born in Tokomaru in 1916, sent me an impressive list of past owners whom he remembered from 1925. He went on to say: ‘In the early days you could buy all merchandise - groceries, curtain and dress lengths, towels, clothes, petrol. Now, 1990, lovely fish and chips. One thing I can remember was Harry Smith, known as “Little Harry” delivering groceries by horse and cart to my parents’ place, one mile from the store, when a thunderstorm looked likely. He thought he would wait under a tree, then on second thoughts he took off. Where he had been standing lightning struck the tree and blew a hole in the ground…’

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Open 7 Days 15. Piriaka Store

I wrote and illustrated ‘Open 7 Days’. It was published in 1991. It’s a series of freeze-frames of some historic New Zealand general and convenience stores as they were preserved in the last decade of the 20th century. Bit by bit, on this blog, I re-publish some of the entries from that book.

PIRIAKA STORE
Main Highway South, Taumarunui.
Proprietor: Joy-Ellen ‘Taffy’ Climo

Waving the flag is a tradition that’s become unfashionable recently, so it was nice to see the New Zealand ensign flying so proudly over the Piriaka Store. The store has been in the family for many years, and tradition is important to Joy Climo.

‘My grandfather John Braithwaite and his wife were early settlers during the mill days [1900s], when he had a mill at Piriaka. There used to be a mill where the shop stands. My uncle, William Braithwaite, once owned the shop. He and his friend Lefty Gray ran out of beer once so they emptied all the bottles of liniment out then put the empties back in boxes on the shelves. You can imagine what happened - many men went home trying to ride their horses and bikes back to front. It’s a wonder nobody died!’
That was in the era when the King Country was officially ‘dry’ but ’sly grogging’ was rampant, Matai beer being made by the railway workers and whisky brought in by packhorse from Tokaanu.

While Joy, who took the store over from her sister Carol Laurent in 1985, insists that she maintains the family tradition of ‘serving the needs of the people’ it’s strictly Four Square and postal services these days, and ’sly grogging’ is consigned to history.

This cryptic sign opposite the store is obviously not intended for high-speed readership by passing traffic!

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.