Selwood Science and Puzzles is closing down after 16 years following the sudden and unexpected death in May of its creator David Thomson.
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Anna Thomson, who worked with her husband in the tight-knit family business, said she made the decision to shut with regret but felt she had no choice.
Selwood, in an historic house at Hazelbrook, was a unique experience combining entertainment, education, science and retail.
Crammed with Mr Thomson’s inventions, it boasted holograms, talking mirrors, a self-playing piano and endless hands-on gadgets and displays, as well as selling all manner of puzzles, games and do-it-yourself science kits.
Mr Thomson, who had an electrical engineering and science degree, made all the displays himself. He spent his life building or tinkering, according to his brother Graeme.
“When he was aged about five or six, he dismantled and reassembled Dad’s kerosene camping stove,” he said. “At age 11, our Pye television broke down and he asked Dad if he could have a go at fixing it. A couple of new valves later and we were back watching Homicide each night.”
He later worked with Honeywell fixing their mainframe computers around Sydney and also spent some time doing development work on the Cochlear ear implant.
After they moved to the Mountains, the Thomsons set up Selwood in 1997. Mr Thomson used his technical skill and imagination to create the “crooked room”, an optical illusion in which everything seemed on a slope or out of balance. He made displays to explain soundwaves, 3D imagery and electrical impulses.
A piano in the entry hall which serenaded visitors all day was an old upright which had been electrically wired by Mr Thomson to play unaccompanied. And for many years he ran workshops in the school holidays to teach young people about science.
Selwood’s piece de resistance was the spectacular high voltage lightning show featuring a 20,000 volt Jacob’s Ladder and Tesla Coil, an electrical transformer circuit which produced sparks over one-metre long.
The Coil has remained silent since Mr Thomson’s death.
“None of the electricity stuff has been operating since [he died] because no-one else could operate it,” Mrs Thomson said.
But it will work again one day. Mrs Thomson is donating her husband’s hand-made Tesla Coil to the Wollongong Science Centre and Planetarium, a favourite haunt of the family on holidays.
Selwood is having a closing sale, with 25 per cent off all stock until the doors shut on December 1.
The house has been bought by local vet Dr Lawrence Baker and his wife, who plan to open a vet hospital in the new year. Selwood does have some medical history in its bones, having once been the local doctor’s surgery in the late 1800s.
The Selwood House Vet Hospital will be newly equipped with advanced veterinary diagnostic and treatment facilities.