When former Hampden School principal John Laing bought himself a tidy looking blazer for $5 from the Salvation Army about 25 years ago, it seemed like a good deal.

On closer inspection of the jacket, John came to the realisation he had probably bought himself a small piece of North Otago and All Black history.

The jacket had shiny silver buttons with a fern on each one, and after gently unpicking a badge sewn on the front pocket, he found an embroidered Silver Fern underneath.

A name tag sewn neatly on an inside pocket read “Hurst”.

John assumed the blazer must have been discarded by former All Black and North Otago businessman Ian Hurst, who played for the team from 1972 to 1974.

Over the years, John would pull the jacket out for any important jobs he had at the school, such as umpiring or refereeing school sports.

If an All Black test was on, John would bring it to school along with a white shirt and tie, and let the children pop it on to mark the occasion.

Since retiring as principal, John says the blazer has mostly just hung in his wardrobe, and he decided to gift it to the Waitaki Event Centre Trust to be auctioned off at a fundraising dinner being held in October.

Ian says he is not sure how his blazer ended up at the op-shop, as he keeps most of the memorabilia from his rugby days in the games room at the Papakaio homestead, Willow Park, where he and his wife Gloria live.

The blazer is a “formal” one Ian was issued as part of his kit for the four months he toured the United Kingdom and France in 1972-73.

“It was worn for after-match, test match dinners, our audience with the Queen and Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace, and other such formal meetings whilst on tour,” Ian says.

The blazer was repurposed with a Canterbury badge sewn on the pocket over the silver fern, for the Cantabrians Tour to the UK in 1979.

“It would appear that it has been discarded during one of our ‘shifts’, and John has picked it up accordingly,” Ian says.

While he is not sure the blazer would still fit, he is keen to place a few bids on it, to help the Event Centre cause, he says.

Trustee of the Event Centre Trust, Deidre Senior, says she expects the blazer will be the biggest drawcard at the auction, which is part of a Spring Fling, black-tie event on October 4.

The event will be held at the Loan and Merc, and includes dinner and dancing, as well as former All Black mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka as guest speaker.

Deidre says he is an experienced public speaker, and she expects he will “entertain and inform”.

John also brought in and donated a Division 2 national 1997 basketball finals programme, signed by the North Otago Penguins team, who won the competition that year.

John, who coached basketball for about 20 years, says it was a problem for Penguin games that the Waitaki Recreation Centre courts are not regulation size, and with only two courts, local competition games would go late into a Friday night, when people wanted to be at home.

“I’ve always thought we need an event centre . . . the Penguins don’t play anymore, maybe they could play if we had a proper stadium,” he says.

Another big donation for the auction, was the recent gift from former Waitaki Boys' High School student Nathan Smith, of one of his Black Caps playing tops, Deidre says.

“It’s so cool everyone is being so generous - it shows how much support there is for it,” Deidre says.

Tickets for the Spring Fling can be purchased from Housekeepers Design or by emailing [email protected].