Old-school retailer looks back on business of buttons and uniforms
A visit to Gillespies Value House to buy a school uniform was a rite of passage lodged firmly in the memory of thousands of young people who have grown up in Palmerston North.
The Terrace End shop is now a pawn shop, but for 56 years, it was a traditional retailer of quality clothing and haberdashery.
Founder Barry Gillespie, now a 90-year-old resident in a city retirement village, sold up at the end of 2016.
But Local History Month in March has triggered many people in Palmerston North, not least daughters Louise Dekker and Clare Locke, to reminisce about the shop’s old-school charms.
They dusted off the memory board they put together for their father’s 50-year anniversary in business, and brought out the scrapbooks.
Gillespie was a Lyttelton lad who discovered Palmerston North and his future wife Elizabeth when he was billeted with her family during a harriers event. They married in October 1960.
He became a travelling haberdashery salesman specialising in selling buttons.
One day when he visited the Palmerston North manchester shop at 769 Main St. He failed to make a sale as the owner had the business on the market and did not want to buy any more inventory. He remembered he went home and had a conversation with his wife, bought the business and a few months later, in 1961, he was on the other side of the counter. He said he liked the idea of being able to make his own decisions.
Back in those early days, the main trunk railway line still ran down the middle of the road, and the shop doors had to be closed when the trains rumbled past.
The shop was stocked with imported and locally sourced goods, from lingerie to clothing, haberdashery, fabrics and knitting yarn, and later, with uniforms for five of the city’s schools.
Elizabeth Gillespie dressed the shop windows, and assisted behind the counter, but was largely a stay-at-home mum when the four children were young.
She continued to help out at the shop over the years, but, “she handed in her notice often”, the daughters said.
Louise and Clare remember helping out in the shop, climbing up the ladder to retrieve boxes of out-of-season garments people requested, slicing the brown paper wrapping with a knife.
They remembered the old green handwritten dockets that people could save up and bring back for a discount on their next purchase, an early, manual version of a loyalty card.
Their brother Andrew helped for a while, sent to sort the tangle of coat hangers in the back room, but younger brother Lance did not.
Gillespie’s key assistant for more than 30 years was Rae Harris, who stayed on even after the business was sold to Academy Apparel, suppliers of many of the school uniforms.
A year later, Gillespie sold the building.
The couple moved to adjoining apartments at Olive Tree Village in 2019. Elizabeth died in November 2021, and Barry, living with limited mobility, moved to the care wing.