John Burt, who found the battle against cancer and the pandemic too much and had to sell Trainworld out of town last year. He died a fortnight ago. Photo / NZME
The man who strove for several years to save nostalgia-inducing attraction Trainworld for the city of Napier has himself taken his own last train ride.
John Burt, who was 81 when he died on March 22, bought the business from friends Michael and Anne Deitz eight or nine years ago to keep it going in Napier.
Having in December 2019 fought with an intruder in a short spree of three burglaries of its building in Dickens St in Napier's CBD, he then battled through failing health (not related to the assault) and the business impact of Covid trying to find a local buyer.
It proved impossible and in October last year he saw Trainworld deconstructed and trucked-off to a new home at the New Zealand Timber Museum in Putaruru, in preference to possible disposal at the tip.
He retained the miniature train stock, books and magazines he retailed alongside Trainworld upstairs in a building most famous as the home of nationally-known pre big-bar era nightspot the Top Hat, leaving the collection for his wife of almost 38 years and bookshop proprietor Twyla, now looking at options to how it also will be dispersed.
His indulgence wasn't all about trains, for of much longer endurance was his interest in Rupert the Bear, the British children's comic strip character and franchise still alive and well in varying forms more than a century after being introduced by artist Mary Tourtel and first appearing in the Daily Express newspaper in London in 1920.
John Burt was born in wartime England on December 9, 1940, in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, and arrived in New Zealand in 1967. About 15 years ago he moved to Napier with Twyla, his second wife.
She says of his interest in Rupert: "It was a childhood thing with which he reconnected during our married life. It was one of those escapist things."
Out of it came possibly the biggest collection of Rupert annuals and books in New Zealand, and drawings, appended by the more latter stock of miniature trains and paraphernalia. His collection of railways books and magazines was also one of the biggest.
After moving to Napier, the couple opened Dickens Books, in Dickens St, a business Twyla now runs "around the corner" in Dalton St, also around the corner from where the miniature trains had been running for 20 years in premises where the Top Hat quickly established both national and international acclaim after opening in 1962, the precursor to the explosion of night-time entertainment in the relaxation of licensing laws and big-bar era a decade later.
In a century-old building once known as the Gaiety Theatre, it remained a nightspot, as the Silver Spade, for some years and it was in 2001 that the trains moved in, when enthusiast Peter Bulford relocated his collection of 37 trains, dating from 1930, along with its rail yards, towns, countryside, 800 metres of track and 6500 metres of wiring from a site in Ahuriri.
It then incorporated the former Mike Scott's Trainworld, established in Rotorua and moved to Auckland and then Napier, and ultimately also the Lilliput Collection owned by former Napier mayor the late Sir Peter Tait, housed in the museum complex on Marine Parade for many years, and then at Marineland before being shifted to Trainworld in 2008.
John and Twyla became friends with American couple Michael and Anne Deitz, who were living in Napier, and John would help out at Trainworld amid the men's mutual interest in trains, leading to the ultimate decision by John Burt to take over the business as Michael Deitz decided it was time to step back.
Twyla says she always had an interest in trains, or more specifically travelling in trains, and had come to grow a knowledge of the miniatures, and of Rupert the Bear, although "very peripherally'".
While not a boatie, her husband was also impassioned by the America's Cup, and she shouted him a day out on a charter yacht during the defence on Waitemata Harbour last year.
"By then he was in the middle of chemotherapy, but he just had to go. Now that he's gone they can take it anywhere they like."
A post by his family on Facebook said he was known for his charm and a "full-steam-ahead attitude" to life.
He is survived also by son Jason (Auckland), and daughter Jennifer (US), both from his previous marriage.