Time has arrived for jeweller to close shop

Press, 11 May 1989, Page 6

Time has arrived for jeweller to close shop

By

RICHARD CRESSWELL

Jefferies Jewellers in Christchurch will close on Friday after about 60 years in business. The owner, Mr Jeff Jefferies, said he would miss the Manchester Street shop where his business has been based since it opened about 1930. He said he still had regular customers whose great-grandfathers had been to the shop for watch and clock repairs. The shop will make way for inner-city development, but the business will be carried on from Mr Jefferies’ home. Watches and clocks from New Zealand, Australia and even from England repaired at the shop — “if we

didn’t have the parts then we would make them ourselves,” Mr Jefferies said. The shop had its own generator installed to combat black-outs during the war years. The Armstrong-Siddeley diesel engine has been sold. The shop’s most distinctive feature has been the electric clock at the front, which has been serviced only three times since it was installed before World War 11. . “I can remember when they were announcing the start of the war. The clock has distinctive chimes and when the announcement was expected a lot of people stood outside to hear the report on radios,” Mr Jefferies recalled.