Peter Fry: rugby rep, founder of Toad Hall, and Spring & Fern co-owner

March 12th, 2010
By David Armstrong

In modern sports parlance, Spring & Fern co-owner Peter Fry would be called a "big unit", but this ex-rugby representative player is in fact a gently spoken, thoughtful man who largely keeps to himself his resolution to make the most of life.

Now into his 52nd year, Peter has seen his share of successes and tragedies, ranging from playing rugby alongside some All Black greats and founding the widely known Toad Hall shop in South Motueka to experiencing the sudden death of his first partner and subsequently solo-fathering their four children.

Peter is one of scores of ancestors of the Fry family who were among the district's first settlers. He was born in Dunedin when his dad was working there, but returned to the family roots aged four and, apart from one year in Australia in his twenties, has lived here all his life.

His upbringing contains no tales of remarkable events and schooling was disappointing, but after a year working for his parents on the family farm he was encouraged by the family to try a Diploma in horticulture at Lincoln College. This lasted only a few months, when he decided to do paid work at the College doing field work for PhD students in the Plant Science Department.

But staying on at Lincoln rather than returning home meant he could carry on playing rugby with the College team, at the time a strong team in the Canterbury Union. Of course, given his tall frame, he played lock forward. Their Under-19 team never lost a game, and Peter represented Canterbury at the Under-19 level.

"At Lincoln I met a guy called Rob Deans," he says, dead-pan faced. "We were in the same team. And then the next year we both ended up at Canterbury University, where Robbie took me to the Christchurch rugby club, and that's where I met his brother-in-law, who is Jock Hobbs."

Peter played for five years for the powerful Christchurch team, alongside them and three other future All Blacks and Canterbury players - Craig Green, Richard Wilson and Alastair Robinson.

Rugby was pretty important for Peter at the time, but not everything. In fact he was also completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in a mixture of history, sociology and psychology. Quite a change from horticulture. Compared with the dry work of learning botanical names, "sociology and history was interesting. My interest in it was latent, and after my uninspiring high school experience, I was able to prove to myself that I could do something."

He recalls that one day during a big snowstorm he couldn't get to Lincoln so he went with his then girlfriend to one of her sociology lectures and "man, this is interesting. That probably sowed the seed."

Armed with his degree, Peter returned to Motueka in 1982 to help with the family business, which operated a market garden alongside wholesale and retail fruit and vege sales at the southern end of High Street, behind where Toad Hall now stands.

He played senior rugby for Huia, and met Jenny White. Their relationship blossomed, and in 1985 they took off on their worldwide working holiday, getting as far as Australia for a year before having to return when Peter's mother fell terminally ill. Jenny became pregnant and Scott was born in 1986, followed by Charlotte, Michael and Lucy over nine years.

Jenny and Peter bought the family business in 1992, and life became the familiar week to week raising of children and making a living. When he was 28, Peter stopped playing rugby but went on to coach Huia seniors for a while. The business remained successful, as one of only a few full-operation (growing, wholesaling and retailing) market gardens in the area.

In 1998 a combination of events led to a change in the landscape of Motueka. Peter had decided that, given the pressure from supermarket sales, the business needed a prominent road frontage for its retail operation, and at the same time St Thomas Anglican Church (beside Hot Mamas) was to get rid of its old hall to make way for a new extension. Peter negotiated the purchase and removal of the hall to its new site.

Beside the obvious reference to the children's classic Wind in the Willows, the name - with the deliberate full stops in between, as in T.O.A.D. - could have stood for The Old Anglican Diocese hall but in fact represented Trading On Another Dimension.

The business picked up well and Peter and Jenny added a Real Fruit Icecream machine - one of the first and largest sellers in the country - and then became a Trade Aid retailer offering fair trading food products: "It seemed the right thing to do, supporting third world countries."

Things changed again seven years ago when Jenny was diagnosed with a brain tumour, aged 45. After two years of treatment, including some heavy-duty chemotherapy resulting in a diagnosis of some 10 healthy times ahead, Jenny died suddenly one night 24 hours after going into a coma.

"During Jenny's treatment I had to become a full-time parent, so the business went downhill. Life was hell for a year, trying to live on a small income." Peter decided to borrow money to revamp the hall, give it a facelift and carry on.

"After her death it was an incredibly hard time, specially for the kids. And my life was a mess. But we got through. We had great staff at the shop."

Fortunately, the Toad Hall facelift proved successful. Business grew by about 30 percent a year for two years, and then Peter sold it. "It was getting too big for me alone, being a single parent and running an expanding business. Something had to go."

He did odd jobs for two years, plus some "serious parenting", including helping Charlotte through a problematic birth. Then, three years ago, he met Sue. "Actually I knew her at High School, but we'd gone separate ways. Some mutual friends get us together."

Peter had applied for a few jobs, but found the difficulties commonly faced by people "of a certain age" even to get interviews. Eventually real estate beckoned, and he was within the posting of one final cheque of becoming a fully trained agent when he saw an advertisement by the Spring and Fern Brewery asking for expressions of interest in a local franchise.

Peter and Sue were immediately attracted to this possibility, thinking that the old Bakehouse would be ideal as a venue. Coincidentally, Sprig & Fern had also settled on the Bakehouse without saying so. Peter and Sue signed up in December 2009.

"So, it's the next chapter," says Peter. It took almost a year of planning, gaining consents and construction work until the business was ready to open. Now it's going well. You can tell as a customer that the staff are enjoying the challenge, but Peter says there is a downside in that it takes a lot of his and Sue's time. The bar is open from 2pm until late, but before that there is all the business management chores such as banking. One or the other of them must be present during opening hours because they are the only ones currently with a manager's certificate.

Tennis is Peter's favourite pastime these days, when he gets time to play. This writer can assert that Peter is a strong player with the height and strength of arm that ensures that any overhead smash remains well and truly smashed.

Peter remains in love with Motueka. "It's a relaxed town, free of stress, no traffic lights, and an amazing climate. There's so much to do here. Mot has grown so much over recent years, with people moving in, and very interesting people who're adding something new." Here he kindly adds Motueka Online as a great new positive.

"When I was younger you'd know virtually everyone in Motueka, but now there are just so many different and new people here. It's an awesome place to live."

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