A ‘dizzy’ auction at Gowan Bridge

Press, 6 July 1977, Page 12

A ‘dizzy’ auction at Gowan Bridge

From BARRY SIMPSON in Nelson “Dizzy,” the owner of the famed and controversial Gowan Bridge Store, has made a sale. And what a sale it was. Mr Ralph (“Dizzy” to everyone) Diserens, who has run the store at Gowan Bridge since 1928 without a licence, is shifting to Motueka. Everything in and around the store was put up for auction. Even Dizzy was slightly shocked by the response to his advertised decision to hold a clearing sale. Well before the starting time of 11 a.m. ail parking space within 400 m of the turn-off to his store, on the Nelson-Murchison highway, was covered and a host of traffic officers would have been needed to unravel the traffic shambles closer to the store.

It was estimated that about 2500 people, from throughout the Nelson province and further afield, turned up for the sale of all manner of items stocked in the old store.

Groceries, long-johns, a bacon sheer much older than the 40 years Dizzy has used it, fishing tackle, spanners, dresses, gumboots, shirts and confectionery, all found eager and at times over-enthu-siastic buyers. Some items were sold for. more than they could have been bought in Nelson.

Those too late to seek shelter under the huge tarpaulin erected over the mountain of goods in the yard huddled under golf and dress umbrellas and

slopped about in gumboots as the auctioneer, Mr Trevor Lumniis, of Motueka, tried to sort our-bids coming frfem .jvithjy and without the tarpabita shelter.

While Mr Lummis was quitting this merchandise, inside the oid store itself Dizzy was dismantling for an eager buyer what appeared to be the windscreen of an oid car, probably of pre “tin-Liz” Ford vintage.

Other people were probing through nooks and crannies in the old building, once a part of the sheds buiid to service the railway which never reached Gowan Bridge. They found items of an antique value, and had a price put on them by a busy Dizzy.

Just for a naif-minute would he consent to be dragged outside to be photographed outside the store which has become a famous landmark in the Nelson province. It was Dizzy’s running battle with the Waimea County Council — which insisted upon his bringing the buildings up to a standard sufficient to earn him a licence — that finally decided him to close down and move to a more populous area. The store has given service to country people within a radius of 25 kilometres of Gowan Bridge, visitors to Lake Rotoroa, and to the passing public, for 49 years. It was opened at a time when the Nelson Murchison railway was being pushed through. The line did not get beyond Glenhope when all work was stopped during the Depression.

Now it has happened, and Dizzy and his wife

are moving to a house in Motueka. How does he feei about that? “Well, how do you think I feel?”

“When a shop closes down in town it is hardly noticed. Out here when Gowan Bridge closes down, it is like a town dying. No petrol bowser, no store, no mail, no place to drop off stuff ordered from town. Nothing. When I go the whole bloody lot goes.” What about someone else establishing a business there?

Dizzy said he thought he had had a sale, to someone who would put up a new store, but finance was tight, and it had fallen through. However, there is nothing to stop anyone putting up a business at Gowan Bridge. “There’s a good living here for someone who will work,” Dizzy said.

In Motueka, for a time at least, Dizzy intends to potter. “I have some accumulated holidays coming.” How much?

“Oh well, my annual holidays since the war have been Christmas Day. A few, I’d say.”

He said he was not certain how the auction had gone.

“The auctioneer might have a clue. But there again what he considers a good sale might not agree with my view. Depends what he got for an item, compared with what I paid for it.” When is he leaving? “Can't say really, anytime. There is still a bit of petrol in the bowser to sell.”

And the buildings? “Who knows?” said Dizzy.