New shop owner Gerry Slessenger thinks he will be a little bit sad every time he makes a sale.

By opening the door to his new Thames Street business Past Times tomorrow (Tuesday, April 16) he is offering people a chance to step back in time.

The shop, which was previously second-hand store Found, is jam-packed with interesting historic items Gerry has collected for the past 50 years. It is almost like a museum, but with no particular theme. 

Most things are quite old, and some are really old. All are fascinating.

His criteria for each item he buys, is that it has to be “nice and different and unique, or something that I can repair”.

“It's just rewarding to bring living history back to life, and that's what I like doing.”

Throughout numerous rooms, and on countless shelves, the shop harbours gems such a 1960s ophthalmic chair, a tandem bike, a 1920s ringer, a 1940s Welsh slate dresser, a collection of Kenyan watercolours from when Gerry lived in Africa, and even 300 teddy bears and rabbits he collected for a vintage cafe that never was.

“I don't know what to do with them! Make me an offer for 300 teddy bears and rabbits.”

A handmade tool box owned by a Royal Airforce carpenter who worked on Spitfires in the Second World War in England. His name is on every tool.

Born in the United Kingdom, Gerry moved to Africa aged 19 to work in a bank, and stayed for 30 years.

“I'd always had a passion and a love for Africa, and out of that I wanted to help relief agencies and missions up and down Africa."

After a few years at the bank, he moved to Nairobi, Kenya and set up a business there, helping various relief agencies “get all their stuff”, in the 70s and 80s.

“I was doing the feeding programme in Southern Sudan for them, and bits and bobs like that . . . and so I travelled up and down all of Africa delivering stuff. I flew along the Zambezi [River], driving and dropping off all the medicines to hospitals and the leper colonies along the Zambezi from beginning to end.”

Gerry and his wife have three children - two sons and a daughter - and his business pivoted when he received a phone call from the headmaster of one of his son’s schools.

“The head of the prep school said, ‘well, if you're supplying all this stuff throughout Africa, can you supply our school needs?’

“So I sent a container to his school, my son's school, which was near Lake Victoria, in the Highlands and he was happy, and then he told other headmasters, and then other schools started ordering.

“That was Kenya, then Tanzania, then Uganda, then Zambia, then Ghana, then Nigeria, and Botswana, and Malawi, and so on, and then the Middle East, and then the Far East. 

“So I was doing a lot of work around the world supplying school equipment. And in fact, I still do that now.”

The couple have family in New Zealand, so decided to move here in 2015, settling initially in Tauranga. As his parents aged into their 80s, he decided to move back to the UK to be with them.

“So I just sold up and went back to the UK . . . and was with them for six years, and that was just lovely, it was a great privilege to do that.”

While he was in the UK - because he was only working about four months of the year during school terms - he doubled down on buying antiques and repairing them.

Fueled by a country steeped in history, and full of thousands of antique and secondhand shops, Gerry’s hobby became an addiction.

A Victorian dental plate and teeth.

“I did them up and I stored them in one garage, then another garage, then a third garage, then in a big container and then in another container… until I suddenly went ‘what are you doing? You've got so much stuff!’.” 

The Slessengers returned to New Zealand, and decided to settle in the South - trying Mossburn out for size, and Gerry brought his collection with him, literally by the container load.

He had an idea to buy an old 1910 building which was operating as a cafe, and make it a vintage cafe, but the refurbishment and earthquake costs were too much, so he decided, instead, to downsize his collection.

Ōamaru is the best place to do this “because of the nature of the town” and the antiquity, he says.

Also in store is a collection of vintage clothes, English and German war uniforms and memorabilia, and even two small children’s suitcases from the Second World War.

“During 1938 and 39, the British government were worried about the Germans invading England . . . and so the government decided to mass evacuate all children to the countryside, and each child had a suitcase. And these are the original labels from 1939 to get the child to where they were going.” 

The boy’s suitcase includes a blazer, his teddy bear, a Government leaflet, his tin toys and cup, a pencil set and original paper.

The girl’s has ballet shoes, a Jack-in-a-box, a sanitary towel, dolls and a clock, among other things. It also has letters from her mother and father.

Gerry packed the suitcases using items already in them, and by adding appropriate pieces he knew each one needed to be authentic.

“These are completely original and unique and you wouldn't be able to replace them. So I would sell them, but I'd have to sell them at a good price, I think, because it's taken me a while to get them all together.”

There is a German spinning wheel from 1812 in working order, and a Sotheby’s verified 1676 document from the sale of land in Huntingdonshire.

Gerry estimates he has about 3000 pieces, but one of his favourites is a 1787 Grandfather clock, which he keeps at home.

He credits his father, who was always doing something in his workshop, for his repair skills. Woodwork is not his forte, but anything else “I’m reasonable at”, he says.

“I think my aim is to pass on the gems I've collected over the years to other people who will love and cherish them as much as I've done.

“I've bought every single item myself. Looked at it, thought about it, cherished it.”

Past Times will be open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 10am to 4pm.

A kerosene projector and slides, dating back to about 1850, with a working gramophone in the background.