YESTERYEAR: Doug Johnston, pictured in the 1960s, in his popular Paekakariki Fish Supply shop.
Going through some photograph albums the other day, one image piqued Doug Johnston's interest.
It was him standing in his own fish and chip shop in Paekakariki, with the prices on the wall.
"I thought it was quite historic, particularly the prices.
"For a $1 worth of fish and chips you got 12 bits of fish and eight scoops of chips."
At 19 years of age, Doug was a keen young businessman.
"I wanted to own a chain of fish and chip shops because I was always ambitious."
So he bought a fish and chip shop in Tilley Rd, opposite the Paekakariki Volunteer Fire Brigade station.
He owned the Paekakariki Fish Supply shop for two and a half years in the late 1960s, which did a roaring trade.
"In those days there was no McDonalds, no KFC or Pizza Hut, no of those.
"There was a fish and chip which was pretty busy on the main road where McDonalds is, and there was another fish and chip shop right on the main road by the Paraparaumu Railway Station."
Interesting the hotter the weather, the more people arrived at his shop.
"That was became all the cars were going to Queen Elizabeth Park and would come up Wellington Rd.
"My shop got quite a reputation because I cooked the food in vegetable oil instead of fat, and did a really good product."
He tried to invent a few things too - a piece of fish sandwiched between two slices of potato - all battered and then fried.
"It was a bit bloody fiddly though.
"I tried all kinds of different things, and I did a bit of catering, competitions, school lunches and wrote a newsletter as well.
"I wore a white t-shirt, white jacket, white trousers and white hat to really look the part."
He recalled Sam Hunt the poet used to come in and have a chat.
"He was a teacher at Paekakariki School.
"The other poet Denis Glover would come in and his wife would get scraps for the cat.
"There were quite a lot of identities in Paekakariki at the time."
With the shop doing well, he wanted to buy another one which was for sale located on the main highway in Paraparaumu.
"I put mine on the market and missed out on the other, then I joined Agriculture and Fisheries as a clerk which was quite ironical."
Doug, 70, who was a a senior administration officer at the Kapiti Borough Council as well as returning officer, before becoming the district secretary when it morphed into the Kapiti Coast District Council in 1989, is now happily nestled in a small house in the Sevenoaks Retirement Village, Paraparaumu.
And he enjoys a feed of fish and chips every now and again.
"Absolutely."
