George Pain’s Life Story

PART 5
In 1872 I got married and started a little general store on Wharekaka Plain. My wife used to look after it and I may add for the amusement of some that my nick-name until I turned 25 was ‘Tiny” Pain.  After I was married the natives called my wife “Mrs Tiny”.

I used to make the trip around the coast every 2 months with my packhorses, selling goods and taking orders for the next trip. Later on my neighbour Tom Nicholls, who was leaving the district, sold me his 100 acres.  I thought that we could make a living by working the 200 acres, with my wife looking after the store. At that that time I couldn’t see my way clear to doing anything beyond it.

Some years later GG Waterhouse bought Smith and Rivens interest out of the station i.e. 20,000 acres of land, 20,000 sheep for £20,000. However, before he took delivery, the Scab broke out on the station and he got £1,000 knocked off the price.
Later the Hon John Martin bought Waterhouses’s interest for £2-10-0 per acre and all the stock given in. Mr Martin cut up the land for a township and what is now known as Martinborough resulted.

I bought largely in the town wherever I considered the best sites were and moved my store up to Martinborough. After carrying on till 1899, I sold the business to John Gallie but kept the premises. 

I then bought a small station of 3,600 acres “Clifton Grove” and I set to work to clear it and put it in order, which took me some years.
My next investment was the Club Hotel Martinborough. I paid £2,150 and leased it for £665 keeping the freehold for about 5 years before selling out for £5,000.
After running “Clifton Grove” for several years and getting it in good order I sold out for £10,000 more than I gave for it but I could not tell you how much of that was profit, as I never kept a strict account of what I spent on it.

My next investment was buying the store back from John Gallie as I could see he did not mean to buy the freehold. I told him that I was intending to start in opposition to him if he didn’t buy the freehold, which he did not think it was a very honourable thing to do and I offered to buy the business back.

When I eventually did, I took a young fellow by the name of Thomas Haycock in with me and the business was run under the name Pain & Haycock. He ran the business, and subsequently a young man by the name Kershaw bought a third share in it. 
After trading for 2 years, I retired from the business and left it entirely to them.