By gum, long-time pumper Russ Newell calls it quits as Blue Gum service station sold

ONE of Hobart’s favourite businesses quietly closed its doors this month after 32 years.

The Newell family have sold the Blue Gum service station in North Hobart. Picture: MATT THOMPSON

ONE of Hobart’s favourite businesses quietly closed its doors this month after 32 years.

Russell Newell said North Hobart’s Blue Gum Service Station and Trailer Hire had been a fabulous business which had made him a lot of friends, but at age 78 and after 66 years of pumping petrol, it was time to retire.

Mr Newell said his son Mike, a former petrol pumper at Blue Gum, had moved on to better things — a radio career at HOFM, after becoming a celebrity with son Matt on the My Kitchen Rules TV show in 2013.

Another son, Peter, died suddenly late last year at age 54 and third son Timothy has moved on to other work.

Timmy, Russ and Mike Newell.

Mr Newell said he had learnt how to pump petrol the old-fashioned way — using muscle power to pump petrol from underground tanks into a cistern — at his father’s petrol station in Cambridge.

He established his Blue Gum Business at the former Moyes Bakery site in 1986 and while finding it difficult to compete on price, customers loved Blue Gum’s full driveway service.

Mr Newell said it gave him a buzz when famous and talented people pulled into his driveway, including top Test cricketers.

“We had Ricky Ponting a couple of years ago … about 25 years ago we had Neil Harvey, Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall, all in the same car,’’ he said.

Mr Newell said occasionally he had suffered the wrong sort of excitement.

In 2000, a man had followed him all of the way from Blue Gum to his Bellerive home, before clouting him with a gun butt in an attempted robbery. The offender was caught.

“I’ve made a lot of friends, not many enemies,’’ he said.

Mr Newell understands the service station will be demolished for housing.