A life ‘selling happiness’
New Zealand caravanning pioneer Wendy Button always said she was selling happiness, and the task became her life’s work.
The Ha¯wera businesswoman, who served three terms as a South Taranaki district councillor and was also a TSB board member, died in Ha¯ wera on April 14, aged 85.
Caravanning had been in its infancy when Wendy and husband Geoff set up White Heather Caravans, and people thought they were crazy, Geoff said.
But he’d lived in a caravan in England before he emigrated in 1957.
Wendy also grew up in England and emigrated in 1960, and her son, Ross, said she used to talk of life in London during the Blitz.
‘‘Mum remembered peeling spuds with her mum and a bomb whizzed past the kitchen window and landed by the house.’’
She always hated the Ha¯ wera fire siren because it reminded her of air raid sirens, he said.
After Geoff and Wendy married, they ran an evening coffee bar alongside the fledgling caravan business, which they named after a talisman of good luck in Scotland.
Three years later, they moved the business to Normanby, and while clearing the site unearthed a White Heather whiskey bottle, which they took as a good sign.
From the start, Wendy was the public face of the business, doing the administration and promotion, while Geoff handled sales and ran the workshop.
In the early days, she would accompany Geoff when he drove to Hamilton to collect caravans.
One day, for the return trip, he gave Wendy the V8 car towing a 20-foot tandem caravan.
She managed fine until the gruelling climb over Mt Messenger and a particularly sharp corner when she attempted to change down into first gear.
‘‘The gearbox had no syncromesh and she missed it, and the car started to run back, but then it jack-knifed so it was all right.’’
Geoff helped her drive it out, and after that she towed caravans all around the country with no problems.
The couple were partners in every aspect of their lives.
‘‘We very rarely ever fell out,’’ Geoff said.
‘‘We could rely implicitly on one another no matter what.’’
As the business grew, they supplied people all over New Zealand and Australia.
‘‘Mum and Dad were young as the business was growing, whereas other dealers and manufacturers were staid and had old ideas,’’ Ross, who later joined the business, said.
In 1970, frustrated by a suppliers’ inability to fill Christmas orders for awnings, they travelled to Europe, bought
14 industrial sewing machines and a huge order of colourful fabric, and set up a factory that eventually employed 40 people.
Ill health forced Wendy to step back in
2019 and she was nursed at home until November, when she moved to Trinity Rest Home.
Due to the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, Geoff and Ross held a private funeral at home.
‘‘It was wonderful because we wouldn’t have been able to deal with organising a big funeral,’’ Geoff said.