After 65 years, experiencing two fires and gaining a fork truck, Bob Treseder of Treseders Hardware in Narromine is putting his tools down.
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What started as a small saw mill and joinery shop and has now grown significantly over the years, will continue to get bigger and better as “the old and the new mix together”, according to Mr Tresseder.
Mr Tresesder began work at his father’s shop in December 1953, and said one of his greatest joys was receiving his first pay cheque.
“I remember leaving school and my first week’s wages was three pound ten schillings and that’s about $7 for a weeks worth of week,” Mr Treseder said.
“My first pay packet for me was a step from being at home and at school, and it felt like here it is I’m out in the workforce, armed with a push bike.”
During Mr Treseders 65 years at the hardware store he witnessed the business burn down twice, the first time in 1953 and again in 1981 and said it was the community’s help which was one of his most treasured memories.
“When the store burnt down in 1981, that was on the Saturday, and on the Sunday the town came with trucks and bulldozers and by Sunday night it was cleared,” Mr Treseder said.
“By Monday night we were at the council they approved it and in three to four days we were virtually going again temporarily,”
“But the town helped us clean up. That took my heart away,” he said.
For the man whose spent his entire life at Treseders Hardware selling the business was a way of helping the shop continue to grow.
“You must never forget the old, but keep looking for the new,” Mr Treseder said.
“I suppose we all have ups and downs, for me the industry’s changing and Simon Hutchison is going to move us right into the 21st Century.”
“It’s going to be exciting I can guarantee that.”
While Mr Treseder explained selling the business was a change the store needed to make, he recalled one of the biggest changes during his time.
“You might laugh you would think computers [are the biggest change] ... but the fork truck,” he said.
“Now a load arrives from Sydney you get a fork truck take it all off and it’s gone in 15 minutes.”
“Imagine there’s no fork truck. Out would come four or five people and we had to then slide everything off and unload it by hand, which would take time.”
“I suppose it didn’t matter what went between your head as long as you were fit enough to lift a bit of fibro off you had a job,” he said.
After six and a half decades of hard work Mr Tresseder has no plans to leave town, and said he will be sticking around to help Mr Hutchison get set up.
“I’ve always lived in Narromine. I have no ambition to go onto the coast, probably because I know everybody here, I’m happy.”
“I’m a very keen model train man, I have been all my life, I chase real trains in life too.”
“But I have a shed as big as all this office with train track in it, and it’s been going for about ten years and I’m not even half way with it,” he said.