Christmas cartoon hasn’t lost relevance in 30 years

However, he would not divulge what they were.

Anniversary celebrations would be tonight ahead of the pub’s actual birthday so it would not be too close to Christmas.

A big buffet was planned and a DJ for locals to dance the night away.

Rennie said the inn’s regular patrons were a good bunch of ‘‘friendly people who were fun’’.

Though he is a self-described retiree, Rennie works as a publican Friday to Sunday, as there was not enough foot traffic to be open more hours. The inn has six bedrooms available for paying guests.

He said the busiest days of the year were the Dusty Butt South Island High Country motorcycle adventure ride in January, the Pass to Pub in March and the Irishman’s Creek Rally in June.

Albury historian Jeremy Sutherland said the beginnings of what is now the Albury Village started with the establishment of the Opawa Accommodation House by William and Emma Butterworth on the junction of the Opawa and Te Ngawai rivers in 1861. Within a year it had been extended and became the Opawa Hotel until it was destroyed by fire in 1873.

The replacement was built in limestone and owned by Murdoch McLeod. He financed the building of a second hotel, Railway Hotel, which would eventually become the Albury Tavern.

Mary Gibson had the longest tenure from 1936 to 1981, and renovated the interior renaming it the Albury Tavern in 1967. It is her ghost which is said to reside there, Sutherland said.

Auckland businessman Pascal Brown bought the tavern in 2003.

Rennie made the most recent name change to Albury Inn and employed a chef who specialises in Asian food ‘‘for a point of difference’’, he said.

As the Christmas rush hits, take some comfort from the fact that the South Canterbury Museum has cartoon evidence that times haven’t changed all that much in the past 30 years.

The cartoon below from 1986 shows the chaos of Christmas shopping and stressed grown-ups while a happy lad tells his exhausted mother, ‘‘sometimes I wish the Christmas season would go on and on forever!’’

No doubt, this little scene will be repeated throughout South Canterbury many times in the coming week.

The insightful scene was created by Allan Hawkey who provided cartoons for 10 years for The Timaru Herald, starting in 1982. Hawkey used the pen name Hawkeye and started supplying the cartoons while a manager at Timaru’s ANZ Bank.

This cartoon is one of several hundred in the museum’s collection, which give a great insight into issues, both local and national, during the 1980s.