According to various explanations of the Grimm Fairy tales the “rub-a-dub-dub” rhyme was referring to the laundering of money. The upper floors of candlestick shops were often used as poor tenant housing and houses of ill repute because the process of rendering tallow to make candles smelled so terribly that no one who had money/social standing would live in the space. Back then prostitution was regarded with the same sort of disdain as it is today, so spending money gained from arranging such encounters was frowned upon.
Legend has it that the butcher and the baker were in cahoots with the candlestick maker, sending him clients for the “ladies of the night” who were his main tenants and were laundering their share of the profits through their successful legitimate businesses. When they were caught “cleaning” the money all three became public embarrassments.
The explanation for the candlestick maker however has always confused me. I assumed a candlestick was the device for holding a candle and not the candle itself. However research has shown that in those centuries before Liberace was to place a candelabra on his grand piano a candle was indeed known as a candlestick. Once the wax started to melt the ancients set it firmly in a saucer.
Anyway all this is merely a dubious lead into a story about two new businesses in Masterton, both of which I have a tenuous connection to.
David Gallagher was the last apprentice I trained back in the 1990’s and if that makes you want to question his skill level then I can tell you that under my stewardship he won the New Zealand Butcher’s Apprentice of the Year Award. His craftsmanship however should perhaps be credited to my senior staff.
He has spent the last twelve years in the police force, but he approached me some months back asking me if he thought a stand-alone butcher’s shop might once again be viable.
In the early 1990s there were butchers shops all over town, but a new law completely abolishing shop trading hours and restrictions was enacted in 1993 allowing supermarkets to open all hours and sell whatever they liked which meant traditional food retailers such as butchers, greengrocers and bakers largely withdrew from the marketplace.
I agreed with David it was probably time for the re-emergence of the traditional butcher’s shop, but I thought his choice of venue in First Street was a shade risky. However since opening Gourmet Meats just before Christmas the business has thrived and has exceeded all his, and to some extent my, expectations.
It makes sense; there are more people living in Lansdowne than there are in Pahiatua. He is also displaying a desirable product using his skills and flair as a craftsman butcher.
Meanwhile a separate office section of the Sign Factory which was once the Tip Top Ice Cream Factory and then Long’s Bacon Ham and Smallgoods Factory has been largely underutilised since the Wairarapa Organisation for Older Persons (WOOPS) shifted to new premises at the Solway Showgrounds.
Enter Frank Bain, original owner of the Ten O’clock Cookie Company, who concluded that a traditional bakery would be popular once again and siting it on the corner of Villa and Victoria Streets would be an ideal location for such an enterprise.
After extensive and I suspect expensive alterations The Old Bakehouse is opening for business next Monday where Frank and his family will be cooking up a storm.
One member of the family, world-renowned pop vocalist Ladyhawke who was over here for Christmas and helped paint the shop area, won’t be there to serve you a mince pie. She is domiciled in Los Angeles.
Well at least I think she meant kneading.
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