Trugs have a long history. The Sussex slatted carry-alls have been lugging veggies and fruit into kitchens in the UK for centuries. Tony Hitchcock has been crafting the wooden garden baskets for several years using untreated willow or hazel and poplar sourced locally from around Golden Bay.
"When I start building one, I fall into a wonderful state of mind," the fifth-generation local told Country Life. A childhood spent in the Anatoki Valley, where he still lives with his partner Maddy and their three children, in part inspired Hitchcock to become a Kahurangi National Park ranger. Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts.
So how did a park ranger become a trug maker? "It goes right back to when I got my first job mowing the lawns of the old trug maker, Brett Hutchinson in the Anatoki Valley near Tākaka. We became good friends, he became a mentor and over the years I helped around his workshop," Hitchcock said. Hutchinson had been making trugs for nearly 25 years when he decided to hang up his draw knife, a long two-handled knife used to shave wooden slats down to the required thickness for a trug.
"He said he wanted to retire and asked if we were interested in taking over the business, which was a surprise and an honour," explained Hitchcock. He accepted and became Hutchinson's apprentice, but with young children and working part-time, it was a hectic few years. "So yeah, I've slowly became a trug maker and I'm still learnin.