Pub’s her passion
A building with many lives has its history restored, writes Emelyn McHardy.
APukekohe publican now owns the building she loves thanks to a fortunate job listing.
Edinburgh St Pub has some old history as it was once the local fire station, but pub owner Leanne Collins has her own memories of the building.
‘‘I love the building, I used to come to this building when I was a child,’’ Collins said.
‘‘I learnt how to do bone carving up here.
‘‘It was something that we did through school, because I lived in Pukekohe and I went to Pukekohe High.
‘‘I’ve still got the first one I ever made.’’
The next time the building was a major part of her life, was when an opening came up for a bar manager at the pub in 2010.
‘‘Well it was a good opportunity, it’s a nice bar.
‘‘A job came up so I came in and applied for it, got the job and sort of ran with it.’’
Since buying the pub a couple of years after she started working at Ed St, Collins has now been trying to restore some of the bar’s history for residents to enjoy.
‘‘This building is nearly 100 years old and a lot of people in Pukekohe remember this building as a fire station and a community centre, back in the day.
‘‘And they like to see all of that stuff,’’ Collins said.
While Collins said that most pieces have been a big struggle to get back in the building, one particular item came from a random source.
‘‘There was a guy downstairs and I was chatting to him and he said that he saw a picture of the old fire station in a second hand shop in Auckland,’’ Collins said.
‘‘So we phoned the lady and ended up with this original picture of the fire station, that no one had had, and we purchased it for $80.
‘‘There are a lot of historic buildings around the place, but it’s getting some of the memorabilia back in.
‘‘A lot of them will stand there and go, ‘Oh, that’s my great great grandad,’ or ‘Oh, I know him,’ so it’s a conversation piece as well.’’