CSB - Peter Jansen - Author

New Zealand has an eclectic assortment of some of the most amazing pubs in the world.   Every pub is different, both architecturally and historically, and all have a story to tell. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the cricket field to the cow shed. It's the
Country Sport Breakfast with Brian Kelly on Gold Sport.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
You kitred and old Fire, the campfire and Natans and
the wailingles car. But there's a nothing so lonesome all that,
Andrea the Understanding, the bark Ah, the pub.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
With no Bear on the show. Now we're talking something
that's close to my heart and probably a lot of
people's hearts around the country, and that is Pubs, New
Zealand Pubs by Peter Janssen. The fourth edition has just
been released and he joins me this morning. You haven't
run out of pubs to write about yet, Peter, Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
No, and I've visited a lot. I probably would have
been in like four to five pubs easily, but quite honestly,
some of them you don't get past the front, doord
You know very far? You know a smelly, an old
bear stained carpet and an old and weeks old cooking
that puts you right off. So this is my peck
of the best ones.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Just looking at some stats here and I read in
your book we're back in eighteen ninety four, so that's
a few years ago. Now, New Zealand had seventeen hundred
and nineteen licensed premises that served a population of just
over six hundred and fifty thousand, so that was one
pub for every three hundred and seventy people and only
mainly me and only. That was quite a stat really,

(01:24):
wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
And where we think there are pubs we're thinking of drinking, right,
we always think their licensed premises, and in those days
they were often you know, the difference between a boarding
house and a pub was a bit vague. You had accommodation,
there were no motels. People traveled shorter distances, so you
had you know, you had to have a coaching stop

(01:47):
or a railway stop, and you didn't get it off
and stage somewhere, so the whole thing was quite different.
And women did go to pubs. It you're seeing some
old pubs. You've got two front doors and one goes
in to the bar and that was men only and
drinking was standing up and it was just blokes. And
the other door went into what they called the parlor,

(02:08):
and that was the hotel part of the pub, and
that's where women went. And they had all these incredible
sitting rooms. I don't know what they did in these
sitting rooms. But the National Hotel and Cambridge I had
thirty seven rooms, one bathroom, seven sitting rooms.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Most of those old pubs now have gone. They've either
burned down or been demolished. So in this latest edition,
the fourth edition of New Zealand Pubs, you've it's a
guide to what one hundred and seventy of the best
historic pubs left today? What constitutes a pub? To make
it to your book.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
What I had a cut off point and I thought
six o'clock closing and sex oclock closing finished in nineteen
sixty seven. And when that changed, the whole thing with
the pub changed because it had six o'clock closing since
the First World War, and then came a place to
go out. And you're often seeing a lot of pubs
in the country are like a concrete block extension and

(03:06):
that's always built in the late the sixties, and then
the pub became a place to go out and then
women and men went, so it radically changed it. And
we keep thinking a lot of people say, oh, we
don't have all those lovely old pubs like Britain does
what we do. Half the pubs in that foot were
built in the nineteenth century, and yes, a lot did

(03:26):
burn down. They were burning down all the time. And
what's an interesting thing about how why pubs burned down?
And I did a bit of homework and common most
common cause for pubs burned out with people smoking in bed.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Really, really you would have thought of about in.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
The bar you've had a skinful, you've got to be
able to have a quick cigarette.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Huh, that's absolutely amazing.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
I know there was one up north and the guy,
you know, this pop atsu was a umfire, so he
throws it out the window, but which is quick thinking,
but lands against the building across a little lane, a
wooden building and burns down half the town and you
get the pubs go up and half the street goes
up with it. And that's a really common story arrow

(04:11):
Town done true. How you know, once once they had
they didn't have fibergades, and they didn't have very good
water supprice. So once the wooden building went up, unflams.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
So each of them, each of the one hundred and
seventy pubs that you've got in this book, you have
a little history on it. You go back to when
it was built, and yeah, it's what it's doing today,
so it's rather fascinating.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, and so and then and there's a lot of variety.
And again three quarters of pubs in the book are
over one hundred years old, so it's quote, you know,
it's quite a historic in terms. We've got more historic
hotels than people think. And and so, yeah, a little
bit about food, a little bit about accommodation and the
story of the pub and whether it's just a nice place.
Has there some architectural inteory, right, it has to feel

(04:58):
a bit of like an old pub, and so those
sorts of places that have the loose atmosphere.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
And it covers North Cape to the Bluff with selection
of hotels. I think it's a wonderful book, Peter, and
every key we home should have one. You can sit
down and read it, and I congratulate you, and I
think we won't give too much more away, but I
think everyone should go and buy the fourth edition New
Zealand Pubs. Peter, well done, congratulations, Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
And there's heaps of photos in there as well, so
if you're not a big reader, don't worry.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Peter Jensen. I'm loving this book, absolutely loving and I'm
ticking off the pubs I've been to. There's the Rutland
Arms in Wanganui. There's the Openaki Surfing and Openaki stayed
there with a good old maid of mine many years ago.
The Wongamongama Hotel. Oh yes, that's a heritage category too.
This is a bloody good book actually,