Newspaper Article 2017 – Family business closing after 86 years

Family business closing after 86 years

By Ruby Harfield
[email protected]

A family business which has been in Hastings for 86 years will be closing its doors next month.

Denton Wyatt Books, Gifts & Lotto, owned by Ross and Glenda Taylor, will cease operation on Heretaunga St East, on December 7.

The store originally started in 1931 as Denton Wyatt Booksellers & Stationers, by Mrs Taylor’s grandfather, Denton Wyatt.

The Taylors have run the business for 34 years with the assistance of several staff members, including Dianne Heighway who has worked there for 25 years.

The couple first made the decision to close the store about two years ago because they had reached retirement age and wanted to spend more time with family, travelling, gardening, volunteering and cycling.

“We have no really big plans.”

Mr Taylor said the pair worked six days a week and found it difficult to visit their three children and eight grandchildren in Melbourne and Wellington as well as Hawke’s Bay.

They also bought a new caravan in July and hoped to make use of it frequently and possibly take on a trip around the South Island.

“We’ve used it once, we had a big journey to Dannevirke,” he said.

Mrs Taylor said they would like to thank their customers for their loyal patronage and friendship over many years.

“Although we will miss all the lovely customers and friends we have made over the 34 years, it is now time to retire from the six-day-a-week business.”

The store was first opened by Mr Wyatt who was a building contractor by trade at Wyatt & Henderson but decided to become a bookseller-stationer after a serious cycle accident made his usual line of work impossible.

Before starting the business, Mr Wyatt (as a newcomer to the book trade) had to ask permission from all bookshops in Hastings to open a new store – one being Foster Brook Booksellers where his wife, Edith, had worked.

The couple opened the doors of Denton Wyatt at 225 Heretaunga St, East, on New Year’s Eve 1931, the same year as the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake.

Two years later their daughters Mabel and Joan were brought into the business.

When Mabel died in 1961, her son Norman bought the business with Joan and continued until Joan’s daughter and son-in-law, Glenda and Ross, purchased the store.

Stationery was a big part of the business when it first started with Conway Stewart fountain pens, dip pens and assorted nibs being popular.

School stationery was also prominent and there would be queues of children at the store until 7pm when it was back-to-school time.

Mr Wyatt supervised a team of paperboys who delivered the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune. He also sold papers from other parts of the country including the Evening Post, the Dominion and Napier’s Daily Telegraph.

Magazines sales have always been strong with orders dating back to 1938.

Hastings resident Margaret Hutcheson said she recalled coming into the shop with her father when she was a child and still has her English Woman’s Weekly and the People’s Friend ordered that day.

“Although we will miss all the lovely customers and friends we have made over the 34 years, it is now time to retire from the six-day-a-week business.”
Glenda Taylor

Another regular customer and retired motor engineer, Colin Campbell, said he placed an order for the English Autocar magazine in 1953 at the start of his apprenticeship with Ross Dysart & McLean, Eastbourne St.

The magazine cost one shilling and threepence (now $14.99) out of his wage of two pounds, three shillings and five pence.

The Taylors have seen several generations of customers with magazine and comic orders such as Beano, Bunty, Archie and the Phantom.

Lotto and its predecessor Golden Kiwi and Art Union were always popular, Mr Taylor said.

“Lotto has been a fun product to sell, having sold more than 10 major prizes.

The business moved three doors down to its current site, the former PJ George printers building, in about 1989 because of the introduction of Lotto and the need for more space.

In 2003 the shop expanded further, into the adjoining building on the corner previously occupied by Eye Browse Gifts and Stevens Cycles.

That allowed space for gift sales.

The Taylors will be closing the doors on December 7 and have leased the building out to a new development – but no further information is available yet.

Photo captions –

RETIRING: Glenda and Ross Taylor are closing the doors on Denton Wyatt Books, Gifts & Lotto, which has been in the family for 86 years.   PHOTO/PAUL TAYLOR

INSIDE: The interior of the original bookshop.

PARTNERSHIP: Denton and Edith Wyatt outside their new bookshop in the 1930s.

OUTSIDE: The exterior of the original Denton Wyatt Booksellers & Stationers.   PHOTOS/SUPPLIED