If you think of an Arrowtown jeweller, you might name-check retail magnate Sir Michael Hill. Or you might think of silversmith Digs Hargreaves, who practised jewellery for about 50 years until recently throwing in the towel. While supping a red wine at the Fork & Tap, he tells PHILIP CHANDLER how he got into both jewellery and his favourite passion, skiing
Well-loved Arrowtown character Digs Hargreaves is best known as an old-school silversmith, but equally as a long-time skier with a very recognisable style.
Just recently, he retired after making bracelets, rings, earrings and chains for some 50 years, and kindly donated all his jewellery equipment to noted Queenstown jeweller Jessica Winchcombe.
Having also turned 75 this year, he also got to ski Queenstown’s Coronet Peak for free, having first skied his favourite field about 60 years ago.
Ironically, it was through skiing he first got into jewellery.
Born in England, he arrived in New Zealand at about 18 months and was brought up by his mum in Canterbury.
His dad, Christchurch-raised Charles, had experienced terrifying times in World War 2, parachuting into Yugoslavia and being a prisoner-of-war in Belgrade, Buchenwald, and the notorious Colditz Castle.
Charles came back briefly to NZ with his family, but returned to England.
He and his wife divorced in the ’50s and Hargreaves didn’t meet him until he was 21.
Courtesy of his mum’s parents, he went to Christchurch private schools Cathedral Grammar, then Christ’s College.
At 10, he was introduced to skiing at Mt Cook’s Ball Glacier, then became, with his brother Guy, a foundation skier at the Amuri field near Hanmer where his mum owned a home — both brothers later became Canterbury champs.
After a short stay at university, Hargreaves worked in Western Australian mines at the start of the mining boom, but not for long.
Following a brief stint in travel, in Christchurch, he got his ski instructor’s ticket in Canada and then worked three northern winters at Mt Snow, Vermont, in the United States.
Between times he headed ski schools at Tekapo and Canterbury’s Porter Heights.
At one stage he was in London when Guy told him he had three weeks to get back to a job at the latter field as an instructor had broken his leg in an avalanche.
The only problem was Hargreaves was down to his last $10, and his mum refused to advance him an airfare.
In desperation, he tried unsuccessfully to sell his leatherwear, so taught himself to make silver jewellery instead.
Luckily he says he found a Pakistani who said he’d take as many bracelets as he could make — proof indeed that necessity is the mother of invention.
Back in Christchurch, with his partner Cushla, he worked for a jeweller who asked him to open a branch in Queenstown — this was 1977.
When his boss reneged on the lease, Hargreaves crossed The Mall and opened ‘David Hargreaves Gold and Silversmith’ in tiny Skyline Arcade premises.
He made jewellery at his Malaghans Rd property while Cushla was the salesperson.
He had the store for about 10 years then, after his marriage fell apart, sold the house, moving to an Arrowtown home in ’89 and setting up a workshop.
His children Holly and ‘Crocky’ lived with their mum in Christchurch but regularly visited.
Hargreaves recalls meeting Sir Michael Hill at a Queenstown function in the ’90s and the latter asking him what he was famous for.
‘‘I said, ‘well, as I look around this room, I would say 50% of the girls are wearing my earrings’.’’
In latter years, he says he didn’t really make money from jewellery as, being handcrafted, ‘‘it was a long slow process’’.
He still enjoyed ‘‘creating something out of nothing’’, but has now pulled the pin as his new Arrowtown place didn’t have a studio, ‘‘plus I was getting very bad arthritis and I couldn’t close my hands to hold my tools’’.
For a while, he’d also earned good coin as a marriage celebrant.
‘‘It was good because I was marrying people I knew, but other people I didn’t know started asking me to be their celebrant, and I didn’t enjoy those functions.’’
He quips he lost confidence as he was the celebrant for his daughter’s wedding and that marriage didn’t last long.
Hargreaves admits he also doesn’t enjoy skiing any more as the slopes are too crowded — ‘‘every time I do a turn I have to look behind me ’cos I’ve been hit from behind before’’.
He’s still unsure what he’ll do now he’s retired, as he gets bored easily.
‘‘I used to roll out of bed and make something in my studio, but nowadays I have to travel overseas to fill in my time — it’s terrible.’’
How he got ‘Digs’
Born David Hargreaves, ‘Digs’ says his replacement Christian name came during school days when he and his brother Guy met a Digby Thacker, known as ‘Dig’, on a North Canterbury farm.
‘‘We thought that was a stupid name.’’
However, when he got up to some misadventure, Guy taunted him, ‘Dig, Dig, Dig’ and the two of them ended up with that nickname.
Hargreaves became ‘little Dig’ and his brother ‘big Dig’, but the latter dropped the name.
Still ‘Dig’, he says the Christ’s College tradition then was for nicknames to have an ‘s’ added to them — hence ‘Digs’.
