Duntroon couple personify perseverance

• Published date: 25 May 2022
• Publication title: Courier, The

There’s a quote written in chalk on the blackboard outside the Duntroon Garage

‘‘Believe you can and you’re halfway there,’’ it tells visitors to the rural business in heartland North Otago.

Inspirational quotes might be a dime a dozen but this one is no twee slogan — it is the perfect summation of the unassuming couple behind the business, for whom the term inspirational seems strangely inadequate.

Andy and Sonya Pickles have owned the garage — a hub in the Waitaki Valley township — since June 1, 1991, but it has been no easy ride.

Mr Pickles, a mechanic by trade, was left a tetraplegic after a motorcycle accident in 2004 when he slipped a gear and flipped over the handlebars during an off-road trail bike ride.

Yet five days a week, he makes the short commute from his home in Duntroon, in his electric wheelchair, to the garage which has provided an essential service to the community for decades.

As he says, ‘‘you can only watch so much Sky TV, can’t you?’’.

But when the couple reopened this year after the Christmas break, that service was in jeopardy, as they had no staff.

Lack of staff — like in many other sectors — was an industry-wide problem and it was particularly difficult to recruit in small, rural districts, Mr Pickles said.

The solution? Mrs Pickles (55), with her shock of pink hair and a smile as wide as the nearby Waitaki River, was now doing her mechanic’s apprenticeship.

‘‘Crazy eh, at my stage. I could be retired by the time I’ve done it,’’ she said, grinning.

It made sense, she reckoned, as the business would otherwise have had to close. She had thought she would give diving into the business a week and see what happened.

One week rolled into another week — she watched intently and asked to see some ‘‘basic stuff’’ as others helped out — and she decided it ‘‘didn’t seem that hard’’, so she thought she would take another step and embark on an apprenticeship.

With more art in her veins than oil — her proud husband described her as a very arty person — she worked in a photography shop before she married, and was a teacher aide when Mr Pickles had his accident.

But she had also spent the past 30 years coming into the garage ‘‘off and on’’, particularly when staff were away, and filling in gaps where she could, so the industry was not unfamiliar.

Rolling up her sleeves and donning her overalls was not a big deal. Faced with the dearth of staff, she thought ‘‘either step up or step out’’.

‘‘I stepped up. One step at a time,’’ she said.

Mr...