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Grandpa's Shed

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« on: February 16, 2011, 02:11:13 pm »


A move gives new life to Grandpa's workshop

Grandson's replica a moving tribute

By TOM HUNT - The Dominion Post | 5:00AM - Tuesday, 15 February 2011


Bill Hendry died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored his workshop in a Rongotai warehouse. This was the original workshop.

Bill Hendry (pictured below) died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored
his workshop in a Rongotai warehouse. Shown (above) is the original workshop.


Bill Hendry, pictured, died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored his workshop in a Rongotai warehouse.


FROM THE roll-your-own cigarettes to the view from the window, everything about Bill Hendry's basement workshop remains almost as it was the day he died a decade ago.

But instead of being under his house in Lyall Bay, it now sits in grandson Chris Mathers' Rongotai warehouse, having been taken apart and lovingly rebuilt.

"I wanted to not only keep it for myself as a family memento but to keep it as a bit of a museum for other people to enjoy," Mr Mathers said.

The old valve radio still works, even if it takes a few minutes to warm up, the old tools are still workable and — like his grandfather, who approved of roll-your-own cigarettes — Mr Mathers smokes rollies.

Even the view remains similar. Mr Mathers took a photo from the old house — cheating a little, because the view from the house was better than from the basement — and blew it up and backlit it out of the window of the reconstructed shed.

Four generations of the family had lived in the house. When Mr Mathers was selling the house recently, he realised the basement was the only part still the same from his grandfather's day.

During the course of three weeks he dismantled the basement, meticulously photographing it and labelling each part so it could be faithfully restored.

"It was pretty interesting. I have never done anything like this before," he said.



Bill Hendry died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored his workshop
in a Rongotai warehouse. — Photographs: ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post.


Bill Hendry died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored his workshop in a Rongotai warehouse. — ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post.

Bill Hendry died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored his workshop in a Rongotai warehouse. — ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post.

Bill Hendry died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored his workshop in a Rongotai warehouse. — ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post.

Bill Hendry died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored his workshop in a Rongotai warehouse. — ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post.

Bill Hendry died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored his workshop in a Rongotai warehouse. — ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post.

Bill Hendry died 10 years ago but now his grandson has lovingly restored his workshop
in a Rongotai warehouse. — Photographs: ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post.



Mr Hendry, who was a shipwright by trade, had a pastime of meticulously creating models of the boats he had worked on.

Those models of ships, such as Tiakina and Tuna, now line the walls.

Despite having lived in the house, Mr Mathers said it was only when he was moving out that his father told him his grandfather had been working on a scale model of the Hikitia — Wellington's floating crane.

"Twelve years of living in the house and I had never seen it."

However, his brother remembered being shown the work-in-progress at least 15 years ago. "It was on [the] shelf, exactly where my brother remembered it."

Mr Mathers said he had considered finishing the Hikitia project but — after estimating that his grandfather had spent up to 200 hours building the crane alone — decided to defer it "until I have some more time on my hands".


http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/4656433/A-move-gives-new-life-to-Grandpas-workshop
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