Father ‘a man of gusto’

Press, 4 June 1984, Page 25

Father ‘a man of gusto’

Deputy chairman, Mr Lincoln Laidlaw’s earliest memory of the Farmers’ Trading Company is watching teams of "Clydesdale horses pulling their drays down to the Auckland wharves to collect in-com-ing cargoes. That was in the mid--19205. He was four years old. The son of the company’s founder. Mr Robert Laidlaw, he remembers there were a few motor lorries around too, “but the company kept a good team of horses. It was a matter of pride among importers in those days.” He describes his fatfier, who died in 1971, as a than

of great enthusiasm and gusto. “He was man who always wanted to know how or why or what. He never hesitated to approach someone and ask the reason for something if he didn’t understand it. “He brought us up with this attitude, which is a very helpful thing. “He was quite an inspiration to me." Mr Laidlaw junior’s first job with the company was in November 1937 in the toy department. He started the day after he finished his university exams. There followed jobs in the thrift department and on

the hardware counter, before he set off on a world trip with the rest of his family in 1939. The Laidlaws were in Europe when war broke out. His father volunteered for service with the Soldiers' and Airmen’s Christian Association. Mr Lincoln Laidlaw and his brother had to return to New Zealand to join up before going back overseas to fight. After the war Mr Lincoln Laidlaw came back to New Zealand and started his own business, using his Army gratuity of £l2OO and some savings’. He made ladies' handbag; frames in a former bedroom of a condemned

hotel. Business soon boomed and he had to find new premises. Today Lincoln Industries is a major manufacturing company. “I think Dad would have preferred me to go back to Farmers’," he says, but Mr Laidlaw accepted his son’s decision nonetheless. Mr Laidlaw said his father always encouraged his three children to stand on their own feet and "didn’t believe in inheritance. He felt that spoiled more people than it helped." Although Mr Laidlaw admits his father didn’t suffer fools gladly, he sad 3 he never felt he was aloof.

"He was a very warmhearted and generous man.” “But he was a competent businessman. He wouldn't do a bad business deal. It would have to be sound and profitable. "He tried to make retailing as exciting as it could be. There were always things happening. “Dad started the Santa arrivals and he was always keen to have Father Christ-

mas arrive in a different way. “One year he decided to bring him in by parachute to the Auckland Domain Santa mis-judged the wind and it started carrying him toward the glasshouses. Dad had a few anxious moments wondering if he would be the first man to kill Santa Glaus. But he landed alright in the pond."