Featherston: From meth capital of Wairarapa to booming book town

The once-ailing town of Featherston has not only turned its fortunes around, it's done it on the back of something else once thought to be heading for extinction - books.

Once upon a time, there was a dreary little North Island town, just over the hill from Wellington, that you could drive through on your way to far more interesting places.

It had a main street of tired-looking shops - certainly nothing that would make you stop on your way to Martinborough's vineyards.

At the north end was one fairly decent second-hand book shop.

Flip over a few chapters to today and Featherston - population 2700 - is thriving. In 10 years it has gone from the methamphetamine and murder capital of Wairarapa to a book town, one of 20 that are part of an international movement.

Featherston Booktown Trust chair Peter Biggs says the once-prosperous town never recovered from the damaging economic reforms of the 1980s - school rolls were shrinking, shops were empty.

"It was stuck in a slough of despond, as John Bunyan would say, and couldn't seem to get out of it. In fact, a previous mayor says to me, we don't know as a council what to do with Featherston."

Local Lincoln Gould had heard about the book town movement, including the famous Hay-on-Wye in Wales which attracts more than 100,000 visitors to its annual festival, and came up with the idea of turning Featherston into a book town, a hub for second-hand bookshops that are the centrepiece of events in the township.

"A group of locals grabbed the idea and made it happen," Biggs says, describing the initial reaction of residents as a mixture of excitement and bewilderment.

Today it boasts seven bookstores, with more in neighbouring towns, and an annual Karukatea Festival in May that brings in 9000 visitors.

Sue Ryan, the owner of Mr Feathers Den, says its success goes beyond Booktown, with visitors also attracted by shops such as the neighbouring C'est Cheese deli that she owns with her partner Paul Broughton.

She has created an emporium in her store, selling an eclectic mix from second-hand rolling pins to taxidermy, as well as books.

"My ridiculous business model includes going out and buying brand new beautiful books for me to read and then if I don't want to keep them in the bookshelf upstairs I will resell them."

At Loco coffee and bookshop, Virginia Kunz sells "anything from psychology to you name it, we've even had Penthouses here".

A resident of 20 years, she has watched the town evolve with the brightly coloured shop fronts lining the streets.

Inside the purple-painted Crystals and Curiosities, you can buy a copy of the Kama Sutra or a crystal-clad book for your mantelpiece.

Around the corner, opposite the Joy Cowley playground, is the Chicken and Frog, where owner Joanna Ludbrook has converted old medical centre rooms to a children's bookstore, complete with a rowboat, and decorated nooks and crannies.

Ludbrook says business is tough because many see children's books as a luxury, but as a former school librarian she is passionate about encouraging young people to read.

At New Zealand's only dedicated military bookstore, Messines Military, owner Dan Richardson shows The Detail his "secret room" where he stores and sorts books.

"It's an Aladdin's cave of all sorts of things. I love coming back here, it's one of my favourite places, to sort through boxes of books and once in a while we find a gem."

To Richardson, Featherston is the ideal place for the store because of its own military history, and it attracts enthusiasts from around the country.

"We get a lot of serving New Zealand Defence Force personnel come over looking for specific books but also people interested in genealogy and family history.

"People come here looking for books specific to the conflicts that their family may have fought in."

But the shops on both sides are empty after the new landlord raised the rent and Messines' own future is uncertain. Richardson is still negotiating but says he might also have to shut up shop.

"Featherston is really growing and that puts pressure on commercial rents and to be honest running a bookshop, especially a second-hand bookshop, is not especially lucrative. So any increase in costs is really difficult," he says.

"There has to be some realisation of the fact that to have this great cultural aspect to the town you've got to consider that in your commercial decisions as well."

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