|
Waipukurau, New Zealand 25 November 1925 - Lower Hutt, New
Zealand 29 March 2012
ROBERT LESLIE WALKER born
November 1925, Waipukurau.
At the prompting of my
children, I will endeavour to set down something of the history of
myself and family as I know it including reminiscences from my point of
view about my Father, Mother and Brother and Sister.
Firstly, my own personal details ….
I was born on the 8th
November 1925 in Sister Anderson`s Nursing Home in Gaisford Terrace
Waipukurau. As my mother used to say, I was a birthday present for her
26th birthday which was on the 15th November. I can even tell you that a
girl called Joan Staines was born in the bed next to me but two days
earlier. As can be expected in a small community we went right through
school together.
My father Thomas Wilson
Walker was born in Invercargill on 19th November 1895 and my mother
Margaret Williamina Pemberton (known to everyone as Reta) was born in
Stirling (just outside Balclutha) on the 15th November 1899. I have an
older brother Ronald Wilson Walker born 19th August 1922 and an older
sister Joan Margaret Walker (now McHardie) born 25th October 1923. Dad
was a Pharmacist and had been appointed to Pukeora Sanatorium, which was
a new TB Hospital for returned servicemen. TB was at that time a feared
killer disease which was treated by giving patients lots of good air,
good food and plenty of rest. As it was all very new Dad had to learn
more skills such as bacteriology and radiography and as he said it was a
great place to work and live.
Mum of course was a
dedicated housewife and mother and a very good one at that. I can look
back now and deeply appreciate the love and care Mum gave to all of us
particularly as she was the disciplinarian. Dad never raised his voice
or hand to us. Mum was totally devoted to Dad as he was to her. She
always said how much she loved her children, had no favourites, but Dad
came first.
My first coherent
memories are of the house in Hatuma Road. This was about a mile and a
half out of Waipukurau in the country. It seemed at that time to be a
large house but in fact it was quite small. It had 4 large brick
chimneys and a long hall running from the front of the house to the
kitchen at the back. All the rooms opened off this hallway and I seem to
recall that I was in a room to the left of the hall. Out the back we had
a long corrugated iron shed that Dad used to keep wood in. It also
housed his old square tank Douglas Motor bike.
Dad used to ride this
bike to Pukeora every working day, a distance of about 2 miles, and as
the roads were only shingle in those days, had quite a few "incidents"
He did tell us about one which I think is worth relating.
Just up the road a farmer
called Fairweather had a sheepdog given to chasing motor vehicles. In
those days of course there weren’t many of these, but every time Dad
went past the dog would come out and bite at his foot as he rode past.
Dad got fed up so, in his dispensary he made up two small glass
containers of chlorine. Next morning the dog did his usual thing so Dad
reached down and broke one of the containers on the dog’s nose. As Dad
put it, the dog disappeared over the ridge in a cloud of dust and was
never known to chase cars again.
At about age 4 I recall
my Grandmother Pemberton with her new husband John Clark coming to stay.
I can remember insisting that he come with me to see all the Hawthorn
trees, which were then in full fruit. Years later I learned that all he
did when we got back was to complain about the distance I had made him
walk. Apparently it was a least a mile each way and he wasn’t used to
walking. I can also recall about that same period I had a wooden whistle
and on trying to blow it one day, I got bitten on the tongue by an
earwig which had taken up residence Still when I was about four, I can
recall Dad and his West End Orchestra practising at our place and over
the road at Davis`s place. Sandy Davis played drums, his brother (Jack)
played Saxophone, Bill Rust the Violin, and a lady whose name I can`t
recall played piano. Dad played Trombone. Dad and some of the others
used to play for the Silent Movies and the West End Orchestra was very
much in demand for Balls and Dances. Mum told me that when I was about
three, the Orchestra was playing at the Annual School Ball and she was
helping with Supper. They put me in a makeshift carry cot and put me
down at Sandy Davis` feet right by the bass drum where I happily slept
the whole night through. Perhaps that is why I love music and dancing.
At five of course it was
off to school and what a dramatic welcome I got. Summers in Hawkes Bay,
particularly to kids, were long and hot and 1930/31 was no exception. I
remember that we had gone to Napier earlier on and I have a vivid
picture in my mind of watching a large number of yachts sailing a
regatta on the inner harbour.
We then went down to
Wellington when Dad took his Annual Leave and came back home on the
second of February. On the morning of 3rd February 1931, my school
career got under way and history will tell you that this was the day of
the Napier Earthquake. As we were only 30 miles away you can imagine we
got hit hard. The quake hit at 10.30 am fortunately, as we were all out
in the playground at the time for morning break and I can remember
taking off at full speed to our teacher Miss Caughley. I was fast even
in those days and I reckon I got to her first. She was only about 5 feet
tall but I`m sure she had every Primer One child in her arms and I was
in danger of being crushed. I have no real idea how long it lasted
although it seemed a long time. A little later my sister Joan appeared
around the corner of the Standards Block and we walked off down the
School Lane to the Main Street. I seem to recall that my brother joined
us there but I`m not sure. The most vivid memory I have is seeing a
large pile of bricks in the middle of the road with the big town clock
resting on the top. These bricks were the front of the Post Office and
when you looked at it, it was like a dolls house with no front. You
could see the Counters on the ground floor and the rooms on the top
floor where the Brownes lived. He was the Postmaster. We then all walked
the one and a half miles back home to Hatuma Road to find our mother
very shaken indeed. It seems that when the earthquake hit she was by the
back door. She ran round the house to get to the front gate and on the
way a brick from a falling chimney just caught her heel and bruised it.
She told us she then had to really hang on to the front gate to stop
from falling over as the ground movement was so violent. In fact all our
chimneys had fallen down but luckily all had fallen outwards and did not
damage the roof Mum did the cooking for the next few weeks out in the
wood-shed on a Primus stove.
Dad went to Napier on the
day of the earthquake with the Medical Rescue teams and came home on the
Wednesday night. On the Thursday he borrowed a brand new Ford Coupe from
one of the San porters, a guy named "Dummy "Percival, and took me with
him back to Napier. As we approached Napier along the Marine Parade you
could see a three storey white building with a lean of 30 to 40 degrees
which I think was a private hospital. My only other strong memory of
this day was seeing a tramcar lying on its side in Clive Square with its
woodwork still smouldering. (I have since located a picture of the
hospital which was known as Dr Moore`s Hospital.) I have written at
length about the earthquake because it was such a devastating thing to
happen to anyone at such a young age and my memories are still vivid.
Memories of my years passing through school are strong and numerous but
I will in general deal with the important (to me) ones. Having survived
the earthquake we were soon back at school which had had a great number
of cracks plastered over and in all the years at primary school, I was
never sure how safe it really was. As I said we had to walk the one and
a half miles to school down the main road which was still shingle with a
rough footpath down the side. However, later on that year we shifted
into Waipukurau and lived in a house in Northumberland Street. This was
a new experience of having lots of neighbours and some of them were a
pretty rough bunch. There was another family of Walkers with a lot of
kids mostly older than us and I can remember some of the boys, Ulie,
Freddie and George. The girls names I can`t remember.
I have two strong
memories of Northumberland Street. The first was around about Guy Fawkes
Day and Dad had bought some fireworks. He had one powerful one called a
"Double Banger "which was very powerful indeed. Well we were all sitting
at the tea table and Dad was pretending to light the wick of this
"Double Banger" to scare us when unfortunately he really did light it.
He didn`t have much choice then so threw it into the open fireplace
where it exploded and brought down a shower of soot and dirt. The room
was a shambles. I seem to remember that Mum was less than pleased and
I’m sure Dad copped it when they were on their own. The second thing I
remember was being doubled on a pushbike by a boy called Dennis Bliss
who was the son of a local baker. Never having been on a bike before I
made the mistake of letting my foot hang by the front wheel, when my
sandal got caught and we had a nasty fall. The skin was taken off the
top of my feet and there was blood everywhere. Fortunately I was right
outside home and Mum in her usual capable fashion soon had me cleaned
and fixed up.
Shortly after this we
moved again; this time to Racecourse Road and a rather bigger house. I
was I think in the Primers at the time. The next year took me to
Standard One where I had a teacher we knew as Miss Pussy Williams. I
realise now that she was very young and probably just out of Training
College. I have no idea where she got the nickname of "Pussy" but I had
a real crush on her. She was lovely. My Standard Two teacher was Miss
Marshall known to all as Ma Marshall. She was a tall angular sort of
woman who was a strict disciplinarian, and whom I always seem to upset.
It wasn’t about my lack of scholastic ability as right through primary
school I was always first or second in the class, competing always with,
Bernie Dowrick, Charlie Lum Jack and Margaret Gideon. I think I topped
the class in Stds 2 and 5 and was first equal in Std 3 with Paddy
Howlett and 2nd in Stds 4 and 6.
1932 was a significant
year as we shifted to Pukeora Sanatorium, to a house on the farm below
the hospital. We were to live there until New Year’s Day 1941. Besides
the Hospital Pukeora had a 400 acre farm which produced everything
required to feed all the "live in "staff and patients. Several staff
families lived on the farm. They were McVicars (2 Boys Bob and Des)
Abrahams (2 boys Nelson and Selwyn ) Fergusons (1boy 1 girl Peggy and
John ) Howletts ( 3 boys Ray, Paddy and Monty) Walkers (2boys 1 girl
Ron, Joan and Bob) Yanko 3b ,1g David, John and one younger brother and
sister whose names I don’t remember) Mcleans (1b,1g, Alistair and Shona.
The core of these
families remained fairly constant over the next seven years but the
McVicars and Mcleans moved away. No other families moved in. Each day we
travelled to school by bus and this could be either a big Packard Taxi
or a 20 seater bus. Later on the Packard was replaced by a new Hudson
Terraplane car. Mike Udjur, a Dalmatian owned a Fish Shop, the local
Taxi and the Bus Franchise, so we never knew what we would be travelling
in. Later on during `39 and 40 I mostly rode my bike to school. I say my
bike but it was in fact owned by one of our local butchers (Charley
Wadman) and was a fully geared and equipped road racing bike.
Once again because we had
to go straight from school to catch the bus home, we never got to be
invited to people’s place or to birthday parties or such things.
Similarly as a family we never had birthday parties and did not invite
many of the kids to our place. There were enough kids living on the farm
that we formed our own fairly closed society. What a wonderful life it
was for a seven year old with literally thousands of acres to roam
around in and miles and miles of rivers and river-beds.
The Sanatorium itself was
situated at the top of the hill 4-5 miles west of Waipukurau and was
surrounded by a 400 acre farm which as I have said made the institution
virtually self sustaining. Our house was down on the farm and was about
200yards away from the Stables, slaughterhouse and pigsties which. It
sounds pretty gruesome, but they were not visible from the house and we
didn`t have a smell problem, Immediately below us down a steep hill was
the remains of 6 fowl runs. All that was left were the concrete block
bases about 30 feet by 30 feet and stepped down the valley like stairs.
These proved a wonderful playground as they were so smooth and didn't
turn to mud in the rain.
Within about two years
however they had pulled up all the fruit trees, and, a little later had
pulled the glasshouse down. I can remember 4 or 5 of us kids had been
down raiding the orchard and we looked into the glasshouse on the way
home to see what if anything we could eat. Berty Cullen the orchard
keeper and his girlfriend (later his wife) Doris Hook were having a bit
of a cuddle in the there and although he spoke a few harsh words to us
he never ever mentioned the fact that we had been raiding the orchard.
What it was to be young and innocent.
From the moment we went
to Pukeora I spent every minute I could with Tom Taylor the Ploughman,
Labourer and General Dogsbody. He was an Irishman about his middle
fifties, unable to read or write but was a wonderfully competent man on
all things farming. He loved his horses and they would do anything for
him. I spent all my years at Pukeora learning everything Tom could teach
me and by the time I was 12 I reckon I could handle any job on the farm
within my physical limits. I could plough with a three horse team and do
all the necessary things to look after the horses and harness them for
work. One of my favourite jobs was in the winter, when we would harness
Daisy our Clydesdale mare up to a dray, go and cut a load of ensilage
and then feed it out to the cows. It really ponged, but I loved the
smell, even though Mum reckoned she could smell me coming from half a
mile away.
We had one bad accident
and that was when Joan and I were riding on the footplate of our horse
drawn spreader spreading superphosphate on the paddock in front of our
house. The Super was quite lumpy and Joan and I were breaking down the
larger lumps by hand. Joan when pushing down on a lump got her finger
caught in the "star wheel" which rotated and let the super fall through
to the ground. She yelled and old Tom who was driving stopped the horses
so quickly that Joan only lost her fingernail and not her whole finger.
The farm also had a
milking herd of 120 Ayrshire cows which were milked twice a day. They
were so well trained that nobody ever had to drive them to their day and
night paddocks, or go and get them when it was time for milking. They
did it all on their own. I learned to milk by hand but it was not a
thing I enjoyed doing. I always helped with cutting and stacking the
lucerne, cutting and baling hay and ploughing and sowing. Old Tom
entrusted me with helping him set up the guide markers for ploughing. We
would take a measure from a fence at one end and make the same
measurement at the other. We would put in a tall marker stake at each
end and then I would walk the whole length of the paddock putting in
stakes every 30 or 40 yards so that they all lined up. We would start
the plough at one mark and and plough a dead straight furrow to the
other end marker. After that it was a simple matter to plough the
paddock with long straight furrows that were very much a matter of pride
in those days.
Probably the most
memorable incident of our lives a Pukeora was the night the Nurses Home
was burned down. It happened that one of our local Taxi drivers (Stan
Thompson) was courting one of the Sisters and they were parked outside
the home about midnight. They noticed flames in the Matron’s lounge.
Sister ran through the Home and woke everybody while Stan rang the
Waipukurau Volunteer Fire Brigade and any other staff member he could
find. I must say that I was not popular that night, as I wouldn`t answer
the telephone when it rang in the middle of the night. It was in the
kitchen right through the wall from my bed. Anyhow they kept ringing and
Joan finally answered and called Dad and Mum who slept right up in the
front of the house. Dad dashed off but Mum wouldn`t let us go and watch
the fire so we didn`t see it till next morning. Then there was nothing
but a pile of ashes. The only thing that survived was the asphalt tennis
court for which Ron and I were quite thankful as we used to spend hours
playing tennis there. I particularly recall that on the morning after
the fire Joan and I spent a long time in conversation with two of the
girls from the home. One of the girls was Winnie Cann and the other was
....Ford. (Can`t recall her first name).They were going into great
detail about losing everything. A short time later they arrested and
convicted Winnie Cann of lighting the fire. It turned out later that she
was a known arsonist who liked setting fire to Hotels and Nurses Home.
She apparently confessed to a number of fires but would not confess to a
Nelson Nurses Home fire in which a girl was burned to death.
Another interesting part
of life at Pukeora was our Wednesday night picture show. This was held
in the Social Hall with strict segregation of patients and staff -
patients on the left, staff on the right. It was quite laughable because
everybody breathed the same air. We had a single projector operated by
Doug Howlett and in between changing reels he played one of the five
records he had. My favourites were ‘Road to the Isles’ and ‘Peg Leg
Jack’. Coming up to the time when I was 12, I was beginning to
appreciate the difference between girls and boys and had developed a
real crush on one of my class mates called Gwen O`Connor. Gwen had
started school with us in Standard 5 as she was from Wairoa. I think her
mother had died and she had been sent to live with her maiden aunt, Miss
Beacham. However I found out that like most young girls Gwen had a
romantic streak and what she told you wasn`t necessarily the truth. So
the reality was probably a bit different. That was a great time in my
formative years as Gwen and I "went steady" until the end of our fourth
form year when she returned to Wairoa. I also had two inseparable
friends - Bob Johnston and Rod Chisholm. Bob was going steady with Kath
Hubbard and Rod was going with Pam Smith. We all went to dances,
pictures picnics etc and played a lot of tennis together …. just the
usual teenagers of our generation. After Gwen returned to Wairoa I had a
couple of brief romances with Sheila Walker and Edna Sparks, but it was
never the same as our old gang. When I look back I must say that they
were wonderfully innocent and protected days and the reality of making
your way in this world were mercifully hidden from us. I should mention
that in 1943 Bob Johnston joined the Navy as a Signalman and Rod
Chisholm who was actually two years older than Bob and I joined the
Airforce and became a Fighter Pilot. He did a tour of duty in the
Islands flying Warhawks, while Bob went to England, trained as a sonar
operator, and did his sea time on an anti submarine frigate in the
English Channel. Rod married Isobel Munro and settled in Hastings while
Bob married Nola Green and settled in Masterton. I had the good fortune
this week (23/3/99) to catch up with Bob at the Carterton Golf Club
where we caught up on a lot of history. I should mention that as at this
time Rod, Kath and Gwen have died.
When Bob and I were in
the Scouts together Rod gave us the framework of a 12 foot Indian style
canoe which his father had kept in a shed. We covered it with a double
skin of unbleached calico which we sealed with numerous coats of paint,
finishing up with a bright red topcoat. We must have spent hundreds of
hours paddling up and down theTuki Tuki River. Bob left school as soon
as he was able to (I think at age 15 ) and went to work in the Hardware
section of Hawkes Bay Farmers so Rod and I spent our spare time together
either out rabbit shooting or riding our push-bikes all over central and
southern Hawkes Bay. We both had paper rounds and on a nice Saturday
morning we would meet up after breakfast and go riding. Our journeys
(all one day trips) took us as far as Napier to the North and Woodville
to the South and all points in between. I might say that at this stage
of my life my bike was a Raleigh Sports given to me by Ron when he
joined the Airforce. I have actually never owned my own bicycle in all
my life.
One other significant
happening in the era was when I was in the Third Form at High School
(1939). Just at the start of the May holidays I had ridden my bike (on
my own) to Dannevirke and back and the day after I developed a terrible
earache. Dad took me down to the Hospital where they diagnosed an acute
infection of the middle ear (Acute Otitis Media). Now it so happened
that Dad had received his first supply of a new drug called M& B 693 or
Sulphapyridine. (This was the first of the Sulpha Drugs of which
Sulphanilimide became famous ) I was the first patient in the Hospital
to receive this drug. One of the things about sulphapyridine was that
all eggs and onion had to be excluded from the diet and they very
carefully didn`t give me any eggs or onions. However I was a very sick
boy and the only thing I could tolerate was soup so this is what they
fed me. (loaded with onions). The infection just got worse and I rather
think I was in a pretty desperate situation because without further ado
they operated on me by cutting through the eardrum and lancing the
infection directly. It took me a couple of weeks to recover before I
went home and I remember feeling very put out because I had spent all of
the May School holidays in Hospital . I felt that was a pretty raw deal.
As a comment on this I should tell you that a girl called Evelyn Halford
from my class developed the same complaint about a week after me, was
admitted to Hospital, given M&B 693 and walked out cured after 3 days. I
was rather annoyed.
[end of part one]
I finished my schooling at High School
passing University Entrance in 1942, and taking extra subjects in Plane
Trigonometry and Drawing (Freehand and Mechanical) I passed Engineering
Preliminary and qualified for Higher Leaving Certificate in 1943. At
about this time a chap called John Pickie (our 3rd grade Football coach)
chased me up to join Hawkes Bay Farmers as a Stock and Station Agent but
I couldn`t see myself staying in Waipukurau all my life, so turned that
down. At the same time I had the opportunity to apply for an Officer
Training Course at Duntroon College in Australia. I wasn`t that keen but
the recruiting Captain kept at me by visiting me twice at school and
even asking the Headmaster to try to convince me. Dad put a bit of
pressure on me not to accept so I didn`t.
I enrolled at Victoria University and came
down to Wellington to live at a Bed and Breakfast boarding house at 120
The Terrace run by a charming lady called Mrs Baird. I must say on
looking back on that period of my life, that it was not a very happy
time. Here I was a callow youth from the country, with no friends,
schoolmates or anyone in a big city, when I was used to knowing and be
known by ev’rybody. I also had made a bad error in judgement deciding to
take Chemistry as one of my subjects as I had not taken this at High
School. I had taken Biology as a science, but this was not an option at
University because I was taking Engineering Intermediate. I would have
been better taking a Degree in the "life" sciences. This put a great
deal of strain on me so that by the end of the year I had not taken
"terms" in Chemistry although I had in Pure and Applied Maths. I must
mention that I was only able to do this year at University because my
brother Ron provided me with 3 pounds a week during the Varsity year.
At the end of the Varsity year I got a job
with my uncle, Alan Pemberton working with the Maintenance Gang at C&A
Odlins. This was an experience and a half. When I started, the gang had
a project on, which involved pulling down the Sawmill and 4 Mill Houses
at Hinakura (out behind Masterton) and rebuilding them all at Wereroa
(Levin). All went well for the first three weeks and we duly dismantled
the mill and houses into sections, loaded them up and transported them
to Levin. This involved a number of round trips. We were working around
sixteen hours a day and when we were at Hinakura the company paid for us
to stay at the Club Hotel in Martinborough. This pub later became famous
on TV as the pub at Pukemanu. Staying at this pub was another one of
those life experiences that it would be hard to forget. Mick Quinn was
the local Publican and he was from a family who had run pubs all over NZ
(e.g. Quinns Post). He was a great guy and was one of the most
entertaining fellows I`ve ever met. He had one particular trick I must
recount. When Mick gave you change, if he had more than one coin, he
would spin the largest one on end and make it run round and settle
behind your glass. He would then bet a whisky against you buying a round
that he could spin the smaller coin and make it land on the first one.
He had a very high percentage of success, but I seem to remember getting
a few drams… whisky was in very short supply at the time. Once, (I was
about 19 then), when we had spent most of one evening drinking with a
group of local people, I asked Mick whether he had any after-hours
trouble with the Law. He replied that I had better ask the guy I was
drinking with as he was the local policeman!
During the pulling down of these houses I
had run a splinter of jarra into my right hand middle finger. I pulled
it out and thought no more about it till about four weeks later when my
hand became so painful that the firm sent me to their doctor, a Dr
Hutchison. He looked at it and lanced the infection and referred me to
Wellington Hospital Outpatients for regular dressings. After a week the
finger had got worse so I asked the Hospital if I could go home to
Waipukurau, and, after some debate they agreed. Getting home was an
adventure in itself as then, about December 1944 wartime restrictions on
travel were quite severe. It meant that you could not travel more than
50 miles without a travel permit and it always took a few days to get
one. This meant that I couldn`t book on the Napier train so I bought a
ticket to Masterton and caught the Wairarapa express. I got off at
Masterton and bought a ticket to Waipukurau without being questioned,
got back on the train and travelled to Woodville. I then waited at
Woodville for about an hour before the Napier express arrived and
travelled through to Waipukurau. I must say that at no time did anybody
ask me for a Travel Permit. When I finally got home, Dad whipped me
straight off to the Hospital where the Medical Superintendent gave me a
real going over and announced that the infection was so widespread that
if it couldn't be brought under control very quickly, he would have no
option but to amputate the finger. Well he and Dad had a consultation,
and, as a result, I was given a course of penicillin which fortunately
beat the infection and left me with my finger. I then spent six weeks on
‘Workers Compensation’ at a higher rate of pay than the ordinary
workers’ wages. They calculated ‘Compo’ on the basis of 2/3rds of the
average of your last six weeks wages, and, as I had been working sixteen
hour days my payment was very high. In fact I was called the ‘Compo
King’ when I went back to work at Odlins for the rest of the vacations
and also finished up in Levin for six weeks rebuilding the houses we had
pulled down, as well as building a new Sawmill.
With the new academic
year coming up, I returned to Wellington and decided that I had to get a
full-time job to support myself; so I applied to the Manpower Authority
as was required by Law in those days. They gave me a list of possible
employers, who, for the most part, were factory companies. However,
there was one Company I recognised called Watson Victor Ltd. It was the
X-Ray and Electromedical equipment company that had installed all the
X-Ray equipment at Pukeora, and, as Dad was the Radiographer there I had
already met one or two its people. I duly fronted up and got a job,
initially in the store, but with the promise that I would be given the
first office job available. This opportunity came after a couple of
months and I was put in the orders section under a guy called Andy
Caverhill. From that point, with only a one year break, I spent the next
thirty-two years working for them.
This really is the point
where the direction of my life changed. I was 19 and pretty well able to
take care of myself so I settled down to making it my business to learn
everything about the medical fields in which the company was operating.
I must say that my upbringing, and the fact that I had studied Biology,
made this a relatively easy and painless line of learning, so I really
began to enjoy my job. Our Managing Director was John M. Graydon, a very
fine man, and one of the old school whose favourite saying was, "It is
not who is right, but what is right"! He was a very ‘hands- on’ boss and
would turn up when you were working and put you through a ‘catechism’ of
what you were doing and why. It was amazing how many times in the early
stages of my employment he would arrive as I was not quite doing things
right and so I soon learned to think pretty hard about what I was doing
and thus avoid embarrassment. I must say that I have always taken pride
in my work and the work ethic which has guided it, and I am sure that
this feeling could be attributed to the fine teaching that I received
from John Graydon.
At the time I joined
Watson Victor I was living in a ‘bach’ at the back of a house in Durham
Crescent off Aro Street. Two of the guys at ‘WatVic’ arranged for me to
get full board with a Mrs Jordan who ran a boarding house at 235 Ohiro
Road, Brooklyn. This was not only a huge improvement on my previous digs
because it was full board, but also, as there were about twelve of us in
the house there was always company.
It was here that I met
Nigel King who was to become Best Man at my later wedding. He was a
wonderful pianist, and our mutual love of music was one of our main
touching points. Thanks to my Mum I had learned all the old songs that
she used to sing and we enjoyed many a good old sing song together. I
must admit that I never thought that I might have a reasonable voice. I
tended to think of myself as a mere warbler. Nigel, however, was a great
one for playing by ear, and, when we first got together I would ask if
he could play a certain song. Quite a lot of the time he wouldn`t know
it and would ask me to sing it through for him. Next thing he would play
it back perfectly with full chord harmonies and said that it was no
trouble at all because my voice was so accurate for pitch and melody.
There were some wonderful times at Mrs Jordan’s.
That same year (1945),
because I was a keen tramper and dancer, I joined the Young People’s
Club which was very active in both these areas. Another two friends of
mine at Mrs Jordan’s who also joined the club, were, Gordon Carmichael,
a lad who hailed from Dannevirke and who worked in the Railway Booking
Office in Courtenay Place and a Murray Grey. The reason I mention these
guys is because we were together when Victory over Japan was declared (VJ
Day) and it became a true ‘Lost Weekend’. I was riding my bike up Willis
Street that morning when all the windows in the Evening Post Building
opened and showers of paper were thrown out. The armistice had just been
signed. Instead of going to the Parkin Plating Co where I had been
heading, I rode up to Courtenay Place and there joined up with Gordon
and Murray to join in the celebrations. I won’t go into too much detail
because an awful lot was quite hazy and the time factor became quite
compressed. However, I do recall some parts of the pub-crawl we
undertook, mainly the Pier and Post Office Hotels. These were the
hangouts of a lot of the mostly Irish Watersiders. I recall that we
spent most of our time singing all the Irish songs we knew and we came
out loaded with bottles of beer without having spent a red cent. They
were all so maudlin and home sick they wouldn`t let us pay for anything.
Although we were in many pubs after that, the other one that stands out
is the Duke of Edinburgh. This was one of our regular pubs as it had
Cascade Beer on tap which, to our mind, was the finest beer in NZ at the
time. The publican used to boast that a new barrel coming into the Hotel
was in the cellar thee months before it came on tap. Well all that went
by the board because by the time we got to the pub it was dry--all the
draught beer had been drunk and they were down to their last few
bottles. My last vivid memory of this episode was being stopped by
Police as we walked home through Central Park about 11.00 a.m. next day
and being told by the Sergeant to go home and sleep it off.
The next few months were uneventful being
taken up with work, tramping, dancing etc. Many know that I love dancing
and would go out of my way to go to a dance. One of the girls from the
Club (Betty Barker) also loved dancing. If she didn`t have a partner she
would ring me up and we would go dancing together. Indeed the whole YPC
gang would go to a dance or a Ball at the drop of a hat. I always like
to point out that I never "went out" with Betty as a girlfriend but just
as a dancing partner. From about September ‘45 to January ‘46 I went out
with a girl from the Club called Nan Marshall who, shortly after I went
deer culling, married Betty Barker’s brother Eddie who at the time was
Club President.
Although engaged in all
these social activities I was still very much a lonely country boy, so,
under some pressure from a work-mate of mine named Les Pracy, I joined
up with him to form a deer culling party and joined the Internal Affairs
Department. I resigned from Watson Victor with the assurance that,
should I ever require it, there would be a job always available to me.
So on the eighth of January 1946 I reported to the Otaki Railway station
for duty as a deer culler.
Perhaps I should give a
little background to this deer culling business. Deer graze a bit like
sheep and cut vegetation right down to ground level. They also like the
bark of the Konini tree and without much trouble can ring-bark and kill
it. This probably wouldn`t matter much if deer grazed in lowland
pastures, but they don`t. They graze the mountain top pastures of
tussock grass and the Konini grows in the head-waters of all the
mountain streams. As they eat the tussock down they expose the soil to
rain and snow and thus accelerate erosion. The Konini trees help to
stabilise the land in the head waters of the rivers, but when destroyed
erosion becomes a major problem. I firmly believe that the problems with
deer were never as bad as was thought, but at this time (1946), because
of the War, our mountains had not been shot-over for 6 years and deer ,
goats, and pigs had bred till they were quite out of hand.
With this background I arrived at Otaki
Forks and was issued with an MLE .303 1902 vintage, long-barrel,
open-sights’ rifle – known affectionately to all as a "Long Tom". I
asked if the long barrel wouldn`t be a bit of a problem for "bush
shooting "to be told by the Field Officer that I wouldn`t be doing a
hell of a lot of bush shooting as I would spend all my time on the
‘Tops’ for which a Long Tom was ideally suited. He was right. I really
came to rely on the accuracy of a long barrel when shooting at altitudes
of about 3000 to 5000 feet. The SMLE short barrels were never quite as
accurate.
I only spent one night at
Otaki Forks as next day Les Pracy and I were taken to Eketahuna and then
into the eastern side of the Tararua Ranges to a place called Putara.
This is in the valley of the Mangatainoke Stream and is about 15 mile
from Eketahuna and became our primary Base Camp. From there it was a two
or three day tramp to get to our advance base Camp in the Waingawa Forks
just below Tarn Ridge. We settled into the hut at Putara which was at
the beginning of the Ruapai Track and for the first week spent all our
time shooting the ridges and tops within a days tramp of the hut. We
then packed up all our gear and supplies and moved on to the Ruapai
Forks Camp situated at the confluence of the Ruapai and Ruamahanga
Rivers. Here we had two ‘eight by ten’ permanent tents with well made
bush bunks. These were made of punga tree trunks covered in deep layers
of dry vegetation and were very comfortable indeed. After a couple of
weeks shooting this area, Les Pracy had to pull out because of a damaged
foot, and I was joined by a chap called Ken Purcell who only stayed a
week then decided it was not the job for him. He was replaced by Ted
Rye, a very experienced shooter and Bushman. Ted had a dog ‘Mac’with
him, about 6 months old; a Bull Mastiff Blue Merle ‘cross’ who stood
about 2ft 6 at the shoulder and had a jaw that would take your arm off.
Just as an aside, one
day, when we were packing supplies along the track at Ruapai, we met a
tramping party from the Tararua Tramping Club comprising about 6 guys
and 4 women. We finally worked out that Mac had never seen a woman
before. It appeared that having been born in the bush he couldn’t handle
the strangeness. I should also tell you that about a month later, Mac
went missing after a days shooting with Ted. After a week or so we gave
him up for dead. Three months later on a return trip to Ruapai I went
into the equipment tent and got bowled-over, literally, by Mac, who had
obviously been living on what he could catch and kill and had probably
holed up at Ruapai hoping we would come back.
Shortly after Ted had
joined me, our Field Officer, Bert Barra came out to camp and told us we
had to be up on Tarn Ridge in three days time in order to receive an
airdrop of 3 months supply of food and ammunition. This was to be the
first ever air drop of supplies to deer cullers and was to be somewhat
of an experiment. We duly turned up at Tarn Ridge and laid out the drop
signals on the ground and waited...... for three days. We then tramped
out to base and Bert made contact with Internal Affairs to be told that
the Public Works’ plane had engine trouble and to forget about an air
drop. Thus we had to pack all supplies in on our backs. This we duly did
by carrying these packs, averaging 100lb, 6 days a week for about 4
weeks until we finally had all supplies back at our camp at Waingawa.
Thus, there was virtually no shooting for this 4 week period. In due
course, the first successful air drop made comprised building materials
for a hut being built on Mt Crawford.
The only real incidents
in the remainder of my time in the Tararuas was being burnt out while
shooting the head-waters of the Waiohine. We had just got a fire going
at our overnight camp when we spotted a bunch of deer coming down a side
stream. Naturally we took off and cleaned up the mob but when we got
back to camp we found that a pair of trousers belonging to Ted had
fallen from the tent rope into the fire. The fire had burned the
trousers but one leg was lying against the side of the tent and the
whole thing had gone up in flames taking all our sleeping bags, packs
and spare clothes with it. It was a three day tramp out to base so we
had to spend two nights out without any sleeping bags or shelter. The
other was being turned round in the fog while shooting on Dorset Ridge
and not being able to move or find my way back to camp until about four
in the morning. Another cold night in the tussock.
[end of part two]
Part 3
After coming out of the Tararuas at the end
of May when the Tops were covered in snow I spent two weeks on leave at
home and then crossed over to the South Island on the Tamahine for the
Winter Shoot in Marlborough. This turned out to be a very different kind
of shooting. My old Field Officer Bert Barra was head of the training
school they were setting up in Wairau River Head-waters and Ted Rye my
shooting partner was assistant Field Officer in the Area where I was to
report. I was due to report at 2.00pm on the Wednesday at the Adelphi
Hotel in Kaikoura. By six o’clock that afternoon I still hadn't seen my
new field Officer although I had asked around a few times. At closing
time when I checked again with the barman I was told that I had been
drinking with the fellow for the last two hours. The guy’s name was Les
Owens a fairly feisty west Coaster and we had been getting on pretty
well. He asked me how an educated guy like me had got into the culling
business and I told him my friend Les Pracy had suggested it. Nothing
was said but I was a marked man from that moment on. What I didn`t know
was that before the War, Les Pracy and Les Owens were shooting partners
over on the Coast, but one day Les Pracy caught Les Owens beating a
horse over the head because he had baulked at a water crossing. Les
Pracy had then given him the father and mother of a hiding and you can
imagine that there was no friendship between them.
I teamed up with a guy
called Buckridge and to this day I don’t know his Christian name. He was
always called Buck. As experienced shooters it was our job to go into a
shooting block after a team from the Wairau Training School had
shot-over it, and then take-out any game that was left. As we had a
large pack of dogs we invariably took out more game than the original
party. Les Owens used to come down to our camps and grizzle that we
weren’t making the tallies we should etc etc whereas in fact we tallied
higher than any one. To make a long story short he niggled us to the
point where we had an argument about a transfer to a block and a change
of personnel. I had really had a gutsfull and resigned. It was only
later that Ted Rye told me they wondered how long I would stick out
against Les Owen because of my friendship with Les Pracy. Strangely
enough, after all this argument with Les Owens he became, outwardly,
very friendly and as a result he and Ted Rye and I drove an Internal
Affairs van to Blenhein and stopped there for three hazy days at
Barrie’s Hotel. Afterwards, I climbed aboard the Tamahine and returned
to the North Island and it was an incident on this day that determined
my future career.
I got off the Tamahine in Wellington in the late afternoon, wandered up
Lambton Quay to an old haunt of mine, the Piccadilly Restaurant, sat
down and had a meal. About halfway through, the Medical Manager of
Watson Victor (Charles Masters) walked in and sat down at my table.
After a lot of catching up he asked me what I was planning to do and
said that there was always a job for me at Watson Victor and I only had
to ask. Next day I travelled to Waipukurau to sort out what I should do,
although I was very keen to join the Forestry Service.
It so happened that the first week I was
home they had an Ad in the paper for Forestry Hands so I duly went off
to Hastings for an interview which turned out very well except that I
didn`t take the job. During the interview they were very impressed with
my background and experience and said that on that basis I would have to
be rated a ‘Leading Hand’. As I was only 20 they felt that I could have
great difficulty running a gang of workers most of whom would be pretty
large Maori boys. I felt discretion was the better part of valour and
left ...quietly! It seemed to me that the best thing to do was to
contact Watson Victor and see what they had to offer. So I got on the
phone to John Graydon the NZ Manager who, I must say, was delighted to
hear from me, and gave me a job on the spot. I duly returned to
Wellington, became assistant to Dr Morice Fields who was then just
setting up a new Scientific Division and settled back into things very
well. Being back in
Wellington I of course returned to my old haunts, the first one being
the Young Peoples Club (YPC). When I arrived I was given a very warm
welcome and was told that I would be the Labour Candidate in a ‘mock
election’ they were having as there was to be a General Election in
November. Considering that prior to going "Bush" I had been in the B
Grade debating team, it must be confessed that my speech was a total and
utter disaster. First of all, I had never been politically minded; if
anything I was National oriented. Also, I had been out of touch with
people for nearly a year and frankly had no idea of Labours Policies. I
was however elected with a good majority …. most of the members being
staunchly Labour. In particular, one attractive young girl whom I had
never seen before came up to me and said "That was the worst speech I`ve
ever heard." That rather damaged my pride, but, as I agreed with her, I
just turned to Betty Barker and said, "Who the Hell was that?" She told
me that her name was Shirley Harvey and that she and her sister Olga
were relatively new members. I must say, that apart from her comments, I
thought she was a lovely looking girl and decided she would be worth
getting to know. When her sister Olga found out I was an athlete of
sorts I was invited along to a showing of the film of the 1936 Olympic
Games and it was suggested I should join the Petone Amateur Athletic and
Cycling Club. This seemed to me to be a good idea because I would get an
opportunity to get to know Shirley. However, the night I turned up at
the Athletic Club I was told that Shirley wasn`t an athlete, so I
decided to walk Olga home on the off-chance I might meet up with Shirley
again.
It seems that about then
Shirl accepted that it was her I was interested in but unfortunately we
never got any time to spend alone as Olga always seemed to be there. In
the fact the first time we were alone was when we went on a midnight
cruise on the old Cobar out to the Wanganella which was then on Barret’s
Reef. As Olga was suffering from some painful shingles, and couldn’t
move around much, Shirl and I escaped and had a wonderful evening.
By the time March 1947 came around I was
certain that she was the girl for me and I proposed at eleven minutes to
eleven o’clock one evening just before dashing off to catch the bus at
Cuba Street. Looking back, I suppose that I had not really appreciated
then just what a huge step it was to ask a girl to marry me, and of
course I hadn`t even thought of buying an engagement ring. One of the
first things I did was to ring my Mother and ask her to send some of the
money that I had left with her after I’d come out of the Bush; and of
course I broke the news of my engagement! This was a real case of
putting the cat among the pigeons as, not only had Mum and Dad not met
Shirl, but also Mum was worried about what her ‘baby’ was getting
himself into. But, being a good Mum, she sent me the money as requested
and I went into Stoneham Jewellers on the corner of Cable Car Lane and
bought a very nice solitaire diamond ring.
Shirl and I decided that we would not make
our engagement official until her 21st Birthday on 4th June 1947 and I
carried the ring around in my wallet until then. Actually Shirl (who
hadn’t seen the ring) used to look after my wallet and watch while I was
playing football, but she was never aware that it had her ring in it.
Just after I had told Mum and Dad of the engagement, they arrived down
on a visit, mainly to meet Shirl and ‘check her out’. I am happy to say
that both decided immediately that I had indeed picked the right girl.
Shirley lived at 64
Adelaide Street Petone, with her Father, Grandmother and young sister
Olga. Pat, her oldest sister, lived down the street at the flats at 80
Adelaide Street. Apart from her job as a spray painter at Jeldi
Lampshades, Shirley had to do all the cooking and housework and
generally look after the others in the house. Her Grandmother was quite
a tyrant and she could make her life most uncomfortable. At that time
football was pretty important to me as I was playing Senior Grade for
Victoria University 1st XV, and, if I wanted Shirl to come out with me
on the weekends to football or athletics etc., I would go around on
Saturday morning, boil the copper, and then do the washing so she could
get time off. This need to help was always there but we coped and always
managed to get out together.
Not long before we were due to get married,
Alf, Shirl`s Dad, got himself into a bit of difficulty with the paying
of the rent and the buying of food, so he asked me to come and board
with them so that there would be enough money coming in to keep him
solvent. I should say that Alf was a Sailmaker by trade and at that time
was arguably the best single handed sailmaker in NZ. However the war had
made it almost impossible to get sailcloth so he really had no regular
work. This meant his only source of income was his War Disability
Pension. He had been seriously wounded at Gallipolli and couldn't really
do any heavy work. Anyhow the arrangement worked well and helped him out
of what could have been deep trouble.
In the months before we got married, when I
was not participating in team sports, Shirl and I spent our time down at
the Hutt River mouth. We had an old friend called Ossy Ryan who had a
boat building shed down there. He always had a dinghy available for us
and we spent many, many hours rowing on the river. We both loved doing
this and it was a very happy period in our lives.
It might be hard for the younger generations
to appreciate how difficult life could be in those days, particularly in
relation to earning and saving money. With marriage in view, although no
date had been set, it became a question of how soon we could save up to
afford to get married. Shirl working as a spray painter in a Lampshade
Factory probably got about three dollars per week, and I got about four.
We decided that the best thing to do was for me to give my wages to
Shirl, less a little spending money for myself. All Shirl’s wages were
taken up in keeping the house going for her father and sister. I doubt
that she had more than a few shillings a week to spend on her self. Alf
never had a ‘bean’ so if we were going to have a wedding we were going
to have to pay for it ourselves. To cut a long story short, it took 18
months of saving before we were able to get married on the 2nd October
1948; and we, on our own, paid for both the wedding and honeymoon. We
married at 4.30 p.m. on the day. I suppose it was a good wedding but
being a mere man I was probably not qualified to judge!
Our Wedding party
comprised Shirl and me, Nigel King (Best Man), Betty Harvey (Chief
Bridesmaid), Scotty Mills (Groomsman), Olga Harvey (Bridesmaid), and
Suzanne Sherratt (Our 4year-old Flowergirl). Unfortunately we had picked
a day when the North/South Football match was to be played, and, as it
got close to 4.30 there was hardly a male to been seen at St David’s
Church. Apparently they were all down at the Central Hotel listening to
the match on the Radio. My brother-in-law Alan who was an Usher was also
getting worried at this stage as the Minister was nowhere to be seen
either! Alan went next door to the Manse, and there in his gardening
clothes, still unshaven, listening to the football was Frank Winton the
Minister. I understand that activity in the Manse was furious with Frank
arriving just a minute or so before the bride who fortunately was
fashionably ten minutes late! The upshot of all this was that Frank
Winton had forgotten his Book of Service but managed to do the whole
thing from memory. Although he left quite a bit out of the service I
guess Shirl and I felt we were really married, so no harm done. We had
our photos done at Jauncey Studios and then had a wonderful reception at
the Heretaunga Yacht Club. The honeymoon was certainly a wonderful new
experience. We had booked into the Portage down in the Marlborough
Sounds but stayed overnight at the Waterloo Hotel opposite the Railway
Station, and. perhaps it says it all if I tell you that Shirl was the
first of the Hotel's patrons to be down at breakfast in the morning. She
said she was hungry or something!
End of Part 3 |
