After having been on the market since 2015, The Scottish Shop had finally been sold and its owner of 19 years was coming to terms with life away from the George St store.
"I’ve loved every minute of it.
"The people that you meet in here are wonderful," Ms Hogan said.
She remembered meeting some special people in the shop.
"You never know who’s going to walk in the door next. We’ve had celebrities, British high commissioners, Scottish politicians, [chefs] Nick Nairn and Paul Rankin ... we’ve got a visitors book here and they signed [it].
"They were outside in their chefs’ uniform and they were walking in the shop, walking out of the shop and I said, ‘Excuse me. If you’re going to use my shop for filming, I at least want your autograph’."
The new owner, Sharon Hannaford, took over yesterday afternoon.
She moved to Dunedin with her family three years ago, and had been looking for a retail business to take over.
"I’ve got some Welsh blood, my husband’s got English blood. We’re South African three or four generations down.
"We’ll keep it international."
The store has been in Dunedin since 1985 and Ms Hogan was its second owner.
"It hasn’t changed hands a lot," she said.
"I think that’s sort of a testament to how great it is to work in here."
Another highlight for Ms Hogan was when she decided to change the store to "The Welsh Store" for a month when the Wales rugby team were in the city.
"It was the best promotion I’ve ever done. It was a month of fun.
"We had the Welsh supporters in. The Welsh team in. The whole window was decorated with Welsh products. The locals got a shock and they would put their head in the door and say ‘Really?"’
She had loved going to trade fairs in Scotland over the years to meet suppliers.
On the odd occasion suppliers had also visited Dunedin and surprised her in the store.
Sharon Hannaford said she hoped to bring in a shelf with some South African goods for sale.
Ms Hogan said the store had to diversify and bringing in other nationalities’ products could be a good idea.
Now, though, it was time for her to put her feet up.
"Because I’ve been working all my life I think just a glass of a wine, a book and some sunshine on my back deck sounds very, very appealing."
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Comments
Time to let go of this out dated colonial novelty. Dunedin is no longer Scottish and our kiwi heritage should be promoted to visitors rather than imported Scottish goods which have a significant carbon footprint
Och aye the noo! Really? You could say the same for the cruise ships 'carbon footprint' couldn't you? Study those polluting facts if you dare! It ain't pretty.
Yes, we should always be looking forward, but we also must not forget our past. Scottishness IS part of New Zealands greater Heritage, from right up north to the very deep south, like it......or not, it is what it is.
This shop solely caters for the cruise ship tourists so it's a double whammy. Carbon products, carbon people. I'm sure the cruise ships are spreading cancer. They never turn their engines off when in dock. Luckily the travel ban and emissions testing we stop the ships coming in. The old owner was lucky to sell up
As for heritage I'm all for it but don't drop ya pants for a quick imported buck, make things local we aren't lacking the wool or spirit
I think you could say the same thing for a lot of produce in the supermarket Otagooldie. Amazing carbon footprint on our food supply. Then look at all the stuff that is imported for Bunnings, The WareHouse, Mitre10, Kmart, Harvey Norman and any other retail store you choose to name. We can't just single out one very small business, standing on it's own small feet on our main street, that would be profoundly unfair in the extreme.
Look at all the plastic packaging in the hardware departments in so many stores, all the crap toys made of plastic that end up in landfill 2 weeks after Xmas. All the clothes made in China by underpaid labour, then we discard it so readily into our overflowing landfills. All the crap imported at $2 shops up and down the country. Do we, as Dunenites, really feel THAT strongly about the percieved carbon print of one little shop? The bus driving past our gates would have a greater impact! Let's be fair about this eh? I doubt our humble Scottish Shop is a deadly threat to the planet....is it?