Museum on main street

“That’s my grandfather!” says Bob Martin pointing to Ngongotaha’s shop of memories on main street.

With Rotorua CBD retailers lamenting empty shops, the northern village of Ngongotaha has found one way of keeping its doors open.

It has operated a museum, a history of a town once the hub of timber felling and transportation and nearby crushes of stock agents and farmers at regular stockyard auctions.

The yards have been reconstructed as a repository for campervans.

Formerly the area, to the north of railway lines heading to Mamaku village, attracted rural buyers from the Poverty Bay and King Country regions.

Bob Martin, left, and Colin Brake discuss improvements.

Like Rotorua Central, Ngongotaha businesses were paralysed by economic downturns over the years.

Usher in Progress Ngongotaha, a group of village folk who worked under the radar to fix the problem.

'We were once 11 shops empty,” former Rotorua councillor Bob Martin told Rotorua Now.

'It's difficult to do anything because we had one or two ethnic groups coming through who did not really want to fit in with what Progress Ngongotaha had at the time.”

The group's president Lyn Benfell says the village had to improve its vibrancy.

Lyn was a retailer; Bob provided the voice viz a viz through auctions and chivvying gently at local emotional and purse strings. Eventually, shops began to fill.

Bob struck a deal with businessman Gary Woods, a friend of many years. He offered to occupy two shops and merely pay rates but not rent. Gary Woods replied: 'He said, ‘it's yours' – just as simple as that,” Bob says.

An opportunity shop with good quality, furniture was set up. 'We were doing well,” Bob says.

Lyn Benfell and Carole Newcombe then set up a base for Progress Ngongotaha from which germinated the idea of a sort of museum. Initial collections came from memorabilia stacked in toilets, says Lyn.

'Over the previous years, people would come in and say they had photographs for permanent display.”

The task of enhancing old photographs – from the days of the old Box Brownie – for public display fell on Colin Brake, older than many of the photographs of a very old railway town, a replica of which is a model at the back of the shop.

'There has always been this push of trying to find somewhere,” Lyn says, as a trail of the village in its formative years reached her organisation.

Photographs of the Fletcher mill and another by another formidable identity the late Johnny Lepper were also produced, adding heft to a burgeoning collection and wider interest from the community.

Bob says he has put some $20,000 of his own money into the project.

And it shows. He stands proudly, almost triumphantly, beside the shop window of ‘The Home Ngongotaha the Memories'.

For the shop once a grocery (operated for many years by Charles Sturt a retired district councillor) and a haberdashery story which earned a formidable reputation is filled with old photographs, farming and domestic implements and even what appears a kitchen with a cold range is a special room behind closed doors.

The village once boasted New Zealand representatives in practically all sports. Looking at a wall of fame it is hard to disagree.

For on one of Bob's postings is Geoff Williams, the present chief executive on the Rotorua Lakes Council. When contacted by Bob, Geoff asked: 'How did you know that?”

When contacted by Rotorua Now, Geoff confirmed, yes, he had represented New Zealand in the tiger class, finishing fourth in Australia in 1981. He thought.

Photographs of the town's numerous rugby stars – Hika Reid, Wayne Shelford, John Brake, Neville Black and, yes, a young Martin son of Bob Martin himself who represented NZ at sevens – and coaching stalwarts and referees like Alan Shing and Charles Sturt – find themselves in Bob Martin's Wall of Fame.

Ngongotaha's sports wall of fame.

Bob credits Colin Brake with 'his wealth of knowledge” as the reason. The Martin and Brake families first settled in Ngongotaha's Western Road in the early 1900s. Their reach and influence are considerable.

'Our memories were tortured for many years at who was who in the photographs,” Bob says. Expiry dates of senior citizens created more difficulty.

Once called the Ngongotaha Museum, Te Papa in Wellington showed interest on contact. A sub group labelled Te Paerenga (small museums) has made two or three visits.

'We have also connected with our local museum (Bath House),” Lyn says. 'We've had that liaison which has been helpful.”

Rena Carter is the fourth member of the hand-on quartet. She represents Mamaku interests, for as Bob says 'we see ourselves as twin towns”. Rena has included much memorabilia from Mamaku.

The group has had support for most of the town and individual villagers – one came in with $200, another $50 adding to make the interior a visit of high quality.

One example of how times have moved in the last 50 years is provided by Les Brown, of Brownie' Spit Spectacular. On a quick visit, Brownie (he answers only to this nomenclature) tells us a decent sized hogget he was preparing for a weekend banquet retails at close to $350 today.

When meat WAS cheap.

Inside the museum, a document from Brownie's shop in 1986 – he was one of two butchers back then – a side of hogget was ticketed for $17.50.

Each of the four has specific work detail. Rena manages the shop, Bob researches and 'finds” things for display, of which Colin photographs for restoration, while Lyn records, tags and labels items which can involve all four. Yet, locals have weighed with practical support.

'One of the difficulties we've had is that we couldn't relate to the number of Pah we had in Ngongotaha,” Bob says. 'It was most unusual, as we had five pahs in such a small area” – several of an estimated historical count of 600 pahs in the Bay of Plenty region.

The late Don Stafford's mapping was scrutinised. In one area, the region's pah are now clearly visible for public display.

While we conduct our interview in what seems a new focus of the village, Bob hastens to add: 'We are standing in the shop that was the first building in Ngongotaha – the blacksmiths”.

While this indomitable chunk of a town no longer has a village smithy, nor does it stand under a chestnut tree of Longfellow's poem, it does have four formidable chestnut trees keeping alive memories of the past.

The shop – dare we call it a museum? – opens on Thursday and Sundays.

Well worth a visit.

Cold rage and stove in kitchen area.

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