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Fay Far spent more than four decades selling children’s books. Her love of that genre will be celebrated by her local community on the anniversary of her death each year with Fay Day, on which people will be encouraged to down their devices and pick up a book.
Far would have been chuffed at the prospect of a day dedicated to books. Aside from her family, they were her life.
Far was as much a part of Wellington’s Island Bay as The Parade itself.
She and her husband Bill ran Island Bay Stationers, at 151 The Parade, from the early 1970s till earlier this year when they finally shut up shop.
Her love of children’s literature brought readers to her shop for more than 47 years.
Some came to buy books or other stationery items, but often they’d just come to see Far. She had time for them all.
The business remained virtually unchanged since the day the couple opened their doors.
Before behemoth stores such as The Warehouse descended, the Fars’ shop sold toys and gifts – theirs was the first store in Wellington to sell Barbie dolls. But over time they were forced to phase this part of their business out.
They remained a stationers and newsagency and, most importantly for Fay, a bookshop.
Children’s picture books without words had always been her favourite: ‘‘You don’t need words to tell a child a story, they should use their imaginations,’’ she told Stuff in 2015.
Bill and Fay lived above the bookshop with their young family, later building a home at the back of the property.
Books filled every inch of the walls in some rooms, because she ‘‘couldn’t say no’’ to sales reps.
‘‘If I could sell every one for a dollar, I’d have a lot of money,’’ she once joked.
Despite their struggle to compete with the internet, Far always had hope for the ‘‘bricks and mortar’’ businesses, which still offered a tactile experience.
‘‘People want to touch things, which they can’t do online. It’ll take a while, but I think the novelty will wear off,’’ she said in an interview last year.
Lesley Fay Far was born in Palmerston North to Sun Joe and Elsie Evelyn Joe. She never knew her mother, who left her when she was a tiny baby. She was brought up almost solely by her father.
When he was unable to care for her due to work commitments, she was in and out of foster care.
She lived all over Wellington, the Hutt Valley and the Ka¯ piti Coast, forming close relationships with many of the carers and their families, some of whom treated her as their own.
At the age of 10, she spent a year in Waikanae, where she recalled riding horses and living the country life. In 1945 she was sent to Wanganui Girls’ College as a boarder.
On leaving school she moved to Wellington. Living in a boarding house on The Terrace, she found work as a clerk.
She met Bill while singing in a wedding band when she was 18. They dated for two years before becoming engaged. Another two years later they were finally married in the Anglican Church in Boulcott St, central Wellington.
The reception was the first to be held in the Winter Show Building, and their wedding photograph was featured in the women’s section of the newspaper, where she was described as a ‘‘modern Chinese bride’’. The photographer, Greg Royal, kept her photo in the window for years to promote his work.
Fay and Bill lived first in Rhine St, Island Bay. It was high on the hill near the old riding SChool, a stone’s throw from the Home of Compassion, where she was farewelled last week, and close to Bill’s family fruit store, D Far Fruit, on The Parade.
The couple had four children – Julie, Steven, Diane and Linda – and soon outgrew the house in Rhine St, so in 1964 they moved to larger premises in Clyde St.
The neighbourhood was full of families with lots of children, so after school Far only had to listen out for where the noise was coming from to track her own brood down.
In 1970 they opened the book and toy shop on The Parade. The family moved in upstairs and this was the beginning of Island Bay Stationers.
Over the years, as the toys were slowly phased out, Far took more of an interest in children’s books, which eventually became a passion for her. So much so that she started going to Island Bay School to read to the children.
She welcomed anybody and everybody to the shop, whether they were there to buy a book or simply chat. She knew just about all her customers on a first-name basis, though she was always sure to address the older Italian women using their honorific.
Far was such an identity in Island Bay that most children who grew up there during the 1970s knew her, many of them later taking their own children to buy her books.
That community of readers may well make Fay Day every day, which would no doubt have pleased her greatly. – By Bess Manson
‘‘You don’t need words to tell a child a story, they should use their imaginations.’’
Fay Far
Sources: Far family, Stuff/The Dominion Post, Cook Strait News.