Hazelwoods

"Gibbs’ warm and easy relationship with Holyoake, who went on to become prime minister briefly in 1957 and again for more than a decade from 1960, boosted his boyhood confidence. Ian’s ambition and his success at Kinloch, meanwhile, provided Alan with a benchmark that in time he might measure himself against. His eldest brother also drove around in great sports cars. As a schoolboy, however, Alan could only daydream of future deeds and entrepreneurial schemes as he stomped the streets on his paper rounds or delivered parcels of groceries during holiday jobs at Hazelwoods. He took any opportunities that presented themselves to trade, however, such as with bubble gum at school or when mushrooms could be gathered on the hills and sold on the roadside."

"Looking back on the period now, Gibbs finds it bizarre: ‘You couldn’t subscribe to an overseas magazine without government permission, couldn’t import anything without a licence, couldn’t even compete domestically with another trucking firm, for example, without going to court to get a licence and proving that you had a customer who couldn’t be served by someone else. It was an incredibly controlled country.’ The Gibbs family, like any business family in the country, had been sucked into the system. Hazelwoods, the general store in Upper Hutt, had the state-sanctioned monopoly on bread in the area. The region was neatly carved up by bureaucrats, but the price was controlled to four pence a loaf."