It was the end of an era at the Otago Daily Times last week, as long-time bookbinder Murray Lawrence closed the final chapter on a unique career.
"I've been working full-time on this job and I'm on to the second last book now," he said, as he applied glue to the penultimate volume of archive ODTs.
Mr Lawrence (72) began the task of binding the broadsheet-sized volumes a decade ago.
"I started at the Evening Star back in 1957," he recalled.
"I came to get a job as a printer, but they already had two apprentices, so they asked me if I'd go up into the bindery. It didn't excite me very much at first, but I gave it a go and ended up really enjoying it.
"I'm glad I did now. When you walk in and see all these books ... they look so good and it's very satisfying," he said.
"The Star had the contract for the banks in those days and we made all the leather-bound ledgers the banks used."
While bookbinding was now an all-but obsolete craft, it had been a very satisfying career, Mr Lawrence said.
"I suppose it's like restoring old cars is for some people. People admire things that are made with quality.
"Because of the size of them, they all have to be hand-sewn because a machine can't do a book like this. Most books are machine-bound nowadays, though, of course."
After representing New Zealand at the 1962 Commonwealth Games in rowing, Mr Lawrence took a job at John McIndoe Ltd.
"I was there for the next 40 years, until I was asked to start coming here and start on all the old Otago Witnesses. I finished those after a couple of years and then they said 'Would you like to do the ODTs now?"'
The volumes were bound in leather and printed with gold foil lettering until 1953, when they were superseded by green canvas.
"Feel that," Mr Lawrence says, running a rough hand over the red burgundy spine of the September-December 1944 volume.
"You can feel the quality and how hard-wearing it is."
Mr Lawrence said he would be keeping busy in "retirement".
"I've got plenty to do. I've got a couple of trotters I'm training out at Waikouaiti and I've got a big garden," he said.
"Besides, they want me to keep coming in once a week to do a bit more bookbinding part-time."
