George and Lesley Sanderson – Part of the Daily Round

Back in the early 1980s, George and Lesley lived in Scotland, farming in the Border country and with no intention of moving to the far side of the globe. But then George, who had been adopted and whose adoptive parents had recently both died, began to search for his birth parents and his roots. To his surprise that search led to New Zealand and to first his aunt and then his mother. This led to George and Lesley making what transpired to be a momentous decision and coming out from Scotland for a visit to Clive in Hawkes Bay.
George and Lesley both liked what they saw and George commented that “we had three days without rain, which was a bit different from home”! Lesley remembers seeing oranges growing on a tree, something she had never experienced before and when her mother visited some years later she was amazed at being able to pick peaches straight from the tree.

Having left school at 15 “straight onto a combine harvester” and farmed ever since, George was also ready for a change of direction but had no clear idea of what that might be. Then a friend phoned and told him that the Mercury Bus Company in Martinborough was for sale, primarily doing school runs to Kuranui College and Martinborough School. The company was also responsible for mail delivery.
Not ones for dillydallying, George and Lesley returned home with the parting words “see you in a couple of months” and began the process of buying the business and moving to NZ. It wasn’t altogether easy however, and they found themselves immersed in bureaucracy and obstacles.

As George says, “the bus company had been on the market for years and you’d think they’d be keen to let us in. We even said we’d buy the business if they’d let us through immigration, but that didn’t work”. However, George says with a hearty laugh, “I’m cussed and I wouldn’t back down” and eventually he won through.
Lesley and George both remember the friendliness they encountered when they first arrived as residents, first in Clive and then in Martinborough. “We were lucky to land in Martinborough”, they agree, “it has the best of everything”. When they drove over Bidwill’s Cutting George recalls feeling “as though I was coming home”.

The buses that were the mainstay of the company in the 1980s were sold to Transit about 15 years ago, but George has retained the RD 1 mail run. He and Lesley still sort the mail as they have always done in delightful old-fashioned pigeonholes in their garage and “it suits us just fine”. RD1 has about 150 customers and covers an area mostly to the east and south of the town, which George tells me is growing with expanding subdivisions.

And that brings us to the Martinborough Star, which the Sandersons add to their run every month. “It makes no difference to us really”, George says, “we just deliver it with everything else and we like to do local things for free”.
They see the Star as “a great little paper, and the snippets are vitally important – nothing else covers the real local stuff and you know exactly what’s going on”. It’s clear that for George and Lesley being part of their community right down to the ‘snippets’ is what makes life so rewarding.