CANDY FLOSS LIFE

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30535, 2 September 1964, Page 23

CANDY FLOSS LIFE

The chances are if you wander round the grounds of the Industries Fair with a shilling in your pocket and a child clutching your hand you will meet Mr J. Andrews. Mr Andrews, bom in Bristol in 1904 and brought to New Zealand two years later, has been filling eager young hands and stomachs with pink floss since 1925, with a few breaks in between. His father was a pioneer motor engineer and trader in New Zealand and the family moved in turn from Hastings, to Blenheim, Timairu, Temuka, Ashburton, and Christchurch.

For the Andrews, the candy floss business got under way in 1925, when Mr Andrews sen., bought two electric candy floss machines at auction for £3 10b. That year at the show grounds the Andrews sold cake-boxes full of candy floss tor 2s 6d. Mr Andrews said the machines were not up to meeting the heavy demand. As the show drew to a close the stocks of spare parts dwindled rapidly. Afterwards father and son modified and adapted, improving the machine. Candy floss was not Mr Andrews’s only business activity. He serviced the Maxwell cars his father had sold and also had a car lacquer plant. “There was no money in the lacquer business but we made hundreds spraying whitewash on buildings throughout New Zealand,” he said. “Then Came 1930”

“But, of course, we spent lit and then came 1930 and no spraying contracts so it was back to candy floss to make a living and to get round the country.” “From then, twice a year for 10 years, I travelled through New Zealand attending shows and selling candy floss.

“In 1940, the day after the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in Wellington

closed, I met a mate off a Norwegian tramp steamer in an hotel and two hours later I was at sea as a ship’s electrician. “After leaving Wellington we loaded oil in the East and then crossed to the African coast, where we were interned at Cape Town as Norway had collapsed. My mate and I were the only British on board so we were allowed ashore. “We kept the crew happy supplying them with brandy at six shillings a bottle,” he said.

The ship was then placed under American articles and plied for a time between New York and Tampico in Mexico.

After signing off, Mr Andrews got a job with the New Zealand Government working at the 1939-40 New York World Fair. He returned to New Zealand in the Tongariro and signed off in Wellington. Of his next commercial venture he said: “We bought whisky throughout New Zealand for 30s to 50s a bottle and sold it to the Yanks in Auckland for £6.”

When things got too tough and the whisky became even scarcer, Mr Andrews moved into the business of renovating roofs, using second-hand iron and bitumen. “I really got into the business because it was an essential industry, which meant unlimited supplies of petrol and kerosene,” he said.

“You couldn’t sell candy floss—sugar was rationed.” A Ghuznee street section Mr Andrews owned was used as a market during a dispute between Wellington’s market gardeners and retailors “I sold all I could get,” he said. The next venture was in hamburgers. “You could get 10001 b of meat a week but you couldn’t get sugar for candy floss.” Shows And Floss “I had plans for an animal meat market but the deal fell through so when the war and rationing had ended it was back to the shows and candy floss.” “I had a go at commercial whitebaiting but missed the cracker years,” said Mr Andrews. “Show business has lost a lot of its life since the Australians stopped sending over their groups of sideshows to tour New Zealand.”