remember the excitement when we got a washing machine, also when we got a fridge as we used to keep things in the "safe" which was a cupboard that vented to outside with a mesh covering that would stop the flies etc getting in. The farmer from the "White Swan Dairy" - which is now White Swan Rd - used to come everyday in his horse and cart and we used to run out with our billies for our milk and cream. The horse knew the run and used to just plod along with the farmer in the back if the cart. The section at the corner of Duke st & Dominion Rd was the home paddock for the Ash farm and used to have a haystack and a horse in it!! We grew just about all our vegetables and the next door neighbour had chickens and they used to give us some of their eggs. The only packet food I can remember was Jelly and that was a treat mainly for special occasions. Everything else was weighed out. Another treat was buying the broken biscuits from the grocer. My mother made all our clothes and also sewed for others for what the ladies used to call "pin money." Our butcher was Mr Shaw on Dominion Rd. and he used to buy his animals and kill them himself so he could be happy with the quality he was selling. We had power cuts in Auckland and there was a time when we had to cook our dinner on pots over the fire!! I also remember when pantyhose came in and the relief on being able to ditch those awful stockings and suspender belts. I think we were much healthier then as the food was not processed or sprayed etc. like it is today.
We had the typical ¼acre, large vegie garden .. grew nearly everything we ate any excess my mum sold to the local shop (country town/village). They did buy in potatoes, enough for the whole year from memory. Had chickens for awhile and gooseberry bushes.
Chicken was definitely only eaten at Christmas and occasionally on someones birthday a real treat.
Sweets, chippies and high sugar foods were usually kept for special birthdays (in our neighbourhood)
Mum and all my aunts and grandparents had their own vegie gardens, fruit trees and all did bottling, preserving, jam making as well as chutney, relish and sauce.
Tomato Sauce was Watties or Oak and only bought on special occasions. We mainly had Plum sauce. Same as Fizzy drinks (fanta was my favourite) and Ice cream.
Only bought biscuits were Huntly and Palmers crackers and granny always had choc thins for us kids (we were allowed 2 sandwiched together so didn't get chocolate on her good furniture).
Mum cooked the obligatory meat and 2 vege, with a roast on sunday midday. Puddings were bottled fruit and custard or cream, steamed pud again with either custard, cream of milk. Rice pudding or sago, tapioca, flaked rice, semolina.
We didn't have a lot of fresh fruit unless it was in season.
Trips to the Hawkes Bay for Stone fruit in January and down to the Horowhenua for strawberries and Raspberries too. We had a lemon tree and neighbours had feijoa's. Plums we got from the roadside as did the blackberries, grapefruit came from an aunt, another aunt had bee's so we got our honey in 10lb biscuit tins. Best honey available.
Bread was only white and uncut baracoutta with the Krissycrust yummy, milk came in glass bottles delivered to the gate and with an inch of cream on top, nice on porridge or if lucky on your fruit at tea time. had an aunt who could slice bread as thin as (you could literally see through it). Only had butter or dripping for your sandwiches (margarine was prohibited), we did get peanut butter as a treat from time to time.
We had a twin tub washing machine, rather than the agitator one. Polished wooden floors were considered to be for poor people (couldn't afford carpet).
Drying clothes was out on the line or Mum got Dad to string a couple of lines up in our garage for winter, otherwise she hung things over the fire screen in front of the fire or put them in the oven to dry (until she melted some socks).
Mothers stayed at home, very few married women worked, so they baked, preserved, sewed and gardened as well as ran Plunket, WDFF, etc.
I never had newly bought clothes until I left school in the 70's and could afford to buy my own, everything was homemade or passed down through the families. the exception being shoes and underwear.
Much much more I can remember like the milk bars (I was too young to be allowed to go). Saturday night baths for church on Sunday.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
It's the butchers' shops I remember from the 1940s and 50s. White tiled, with the great carcases hanging from hooks down one side of the shop where you tried not to brush them with your clothing as you walked past. Good animal anatomy lessons for wide-eyed children. The sawdust on the red-painted floors that you trudged through, with the blood from the carcases dripping onto it. The strong meaty smell
The family home kept chickens and excess eggs were rubbed with Ovoline and preserved in stone crocks. We never suffered when eggs were on ration, as they were from during the War to 1950, I think - sugar was rationed till then, too.
My mother is now nearly 90 and was an early recycler - people who had been through the Great Depression and the War learned that "wicked waste makes woeful want" so we saved string, passed on outgrown clothes to others and accepted clothes in our turn, turned our sheets sides to middle to make them last longer, and turned the collars on our shirts.
I am in my 70s and remember cuttting a slice off the Taniwha soap bar to put in the soap shaker for doing the dishes. Placing it on top of the dishes in the sink and pouring hot water from the big black kettle that was always simmering on top of the old coal range. The irons were always placed on the side of the stove ready to be placed on the hottest part of the stove on ironing day (once a week).
Our tubs in the wash house were made of wood with the old wringer ready for action and the blue bag. On bath night there would be a special boil up of the copper and the big water dipper would be used to fill the kerosine tin (with homemade wire handle) with the hot water and then carried into the house where the bath was..there was only cold water over the bath and sink. No electricity. Light at night was from a kerosene lamp with mantles. Candles were used to go to bedrooms and it was an outside tin can toilet with a night cart man collecting. Horse and cart milk delivery from a can using pint and half pint dippers.Iceblocks hadn't been thought of so we, on occasions when it was a frosty night, would mix vanilla in some milk and place in an enamel plate, to freeze.What a treat. The war was on and butter was rationed so the drainings from after a roast (left to go cold) was a treat on the end crusts of loaves with pepper and salt. The school gave us an apple a day and a small bottle of milk. My grandmother used to make carraway seed cake and I used to love sitting with her on the back verandah whilst she podded peas or sliced up the beans. We had porridge and top cream and brown sugar. Mum used to make pikelets on a girdle iron.
The family home kept chickens and excess eggs were rubbed with Ovoline and preserved in stone crocks. We never suffered when eggs were on ration, as they were from during the War to 1950, I think - sugar was rationed till then, too.
My mother is now nearly 90 and was an early recycler - people who had been through the Great Depression and the War learned that "wicked waste makes woeful want" so we saved string, passed on outgrown clothes to others and accepted clothes in our turn, turned our sheets sides to middle to make them last longer, and turned the collars on our shirts.
I am in my 70s and remember cuttting a slice off the Taniwha soap bar to put in the soap shaker for doing the dishes. Placing it on top of the dishes in the sink and pouring hot water from the big black kettle that was always simmering on top of the old coal range. The irons were always placed on the side of the stove ready to be placed on the hottest part of the stove on ironing day (once a week).
Our tubs in the wash house were made of wood with the old wringer ready for action and the blue bag. On bath night there would be a special boil up of the copper and the big water dipper would be used to fill the kerosine tin (with homemade wire handle) with the hot water and then carried into the house where the bath was..there was only cold water over the bath and sink. No electricity. Light at night was from a kerosene lamp with mantles. Candles were used to go to bedrooms and it was an outside tin can toilet with a night cart man collecting. Horse and cart milk delivery from a can using pint and half pint dippers.Iceblocks hadn't been thought of so we, on occasions when it was a frosty night, would mix vanilla in some milk and place in an enamel plate, to freeze.What a treat. The war was on and butter was rationed so the drainings from after a roast (left to go cold) was a treat on the end crusts of loaves with pepper and salt. The school gave us an apple a day and a small bottle of milk. My grandmother used to make carraway seed cake and I used to love sitting with her on the back verandah whilst she podded peas or sliced up the beans. We had porridge and top cream and brown sugar. Mum used to make pikelets on a girdle iron.
I was 1 of 6 children living up the road from Glen Innes. Groceries came from the 4 Square or down a weekly trip on foot with baby and sibling on the pram to wander through the small shops (no big supermarket) along Line Road. I remember cheese was cut from a block and honey was big sticky cubes in small boxes. Groceries delivered back to home later in big brown boxes.
Our mum did ALL the baking of cakes, biscuits, slices, sponge cakes and took great pride in them (she was famous for her sponge cakes layered with real cream and preserved berries). A rarity was a store bought cake from the Ernest Adams shop down in GI.
A real treat was small newspaper wrapped packets of fish n chips on a Friday evening to be eaten on the walk home with our mum or we'd be given 50c to take to the back door of the Kohi factory to get broken shortbread - (closest we got to store bought).
Or dad was from Hokianga/Kaeo and our Nana lived along Tamaki Drive and her garden was a half acre section edged with every type of fruiting tree and underplanted with beautiful Dahlias, the interior planted out with ROWS of veges. In those days Nana's place was the centre of the family and weekends were mostly there with all the rellies and our cousins.
Planting, harvesting and preserving all that food was high priority, with lots of card playing, smoking, cups of tea, eating by the adults in between. Our job was to get up the trees and pick collect the fruit, the mums loading up huge galvanised bathtubs with the fruit & veges for pickling and preserving or drying (potatoes & pumpkin) and the dreaded rotten corn into jars in the spare shed under the grapevines. These were happy, satisfied days.
am 55 and I grew up in Titirangi Auckland. We lived a good 15 min walk from the Village but a little closer was a small corner shop owned by Mr Barber. It was attached to the Toby Jug Restaurent. You bought sugar and tea (loose tea) by the pound, biscuits weren't prepackaged in those days they were all in tins and you bought howver many you wanted. I think they were Bycroft biscuits then. Bread came fresh every day and I loved those loaves that you broke apart. I ate the middle out of one of those on the way home from the shops once. Butter was bought by ounces or pounds. We bought meat from the butcher (sawdust on the floor). Until the first supermarket opened there we bought groceries from the 4 square and there was a proper hardware shop where you bought nails and screws etc by weight. My Mum worked full time for most of my childhood but baked everything herself and all meals from scratch.
a lot of people still have gardens or are returning to gardening as a healthy option, plus a lot of women have careers which cuts down on the time it takes to do and make these things.
Let the memories run and listen and learn.
I remember my mum using the copper for the weekly wash, my Uncle would clean and polish it out every Christmas then cook the ham in it, ahhh the smells were wonderful and it would take him all day to do it. Best Ham Ive ever eaten.
When the milk arrived it was always a fight to get to the 'top' milk for our porridge as this was the creamiest part.
When we picked up the bread on our way home from school we would prize the loaves apart and get little hands down into the 'kissy' bit and pull bits off, I remember hollowing out one half once and getting a hiding for it- which I deserved.
Dad hunted so we always had venison, ducks, wild pork etc on the table. Mum kept chooks and tons of fruit trees and my Grandad had a huge vege garden. Seafood involved family and cousins etc and a whole day at the beach where a fire would be lit and the kids cooked spuds in the ashes while the gathering went on.
Same with whitebaiting when mum and the aunts (and kids) would spend hours on the river bank.
Wild blackberries were plentiful and delicious, kids always arrived home scratched and tired with purple lips and fingers.
Entertainment was a singsong around the piano accompanied by any instrument people could lay their hands on.
We loved to make pompoms using the cardboad with the hole in from the top of the milk bottles and did french knitting with cotton reels with 4 little tacks around the top.
Nobody got bored, there were always tadpoles to catch, lupin tracks to explore, swamps to conquer and trees to climb. I
Our mum did ALL the baking of cakes, biscuits, slices, sponge cakes and took great pride in them (she was famous for her sponge cakes layered with real cream and preserved berries). A rarity was a store bought cake from the Ernest Adams shop down in GI.
A real treat was small newspaper wrapped packets of fish n chips on a Friday evening to be eaten on the walk home with our mum or we'd be given 50c to take to the back door of the Kohi factory to get broken shortbread - (closest we got to store bought).
Or dad was from Hokianga/Kaeo and our Nana lived along Tamaki Drive and her garden was a half acre section edged with every type of fruiting tree and underplanted with beautiful Dahlias, the interior planted out with ROWS of veges. In those days Nana's place was the centre of the family and weekends were mostly there with all the rellies and our cousins.
Planting, harvesting and preserving all that food was high priority, with lots of card playing, smoking, cups of tea, eating by the adults in between. Our job was to get up the trees and pick collect the fruit, the mums loading up huge galvanised bathtubs with the fruit & veges for pickling and preserving or drying (potatoes & pumpkin) and the dreaded rotten corn into jars in the spare shed under the grapevines. These were happy, satisfied days.
am 55 and I grew up in Titirangi Auckland. We lived a good 15 min walk from the Village but a little closer was a small corner shop owned by Mr Barber. It was attached to the Toby Jug Restaurent. You bought sugar and tea (loose tea) by the pound, biscuits weren't prepackaged in those days they were all in tins and you bought howver many you wanted. I think they were Bycroft biscuits then. Bread came fresh every day and I loved those loaves that you broke apart. I ate the middle out of one of those on the way home from the shops once. Butter was bought by ounces or pounds. We bought meat from the butcher (sawdust on the floor). Until the first supermarket opened there we bought groceries from the 4 square and there was a proper hardware shop where you bought nails and screws etc by weight. My Mum worked full time for most of my childhood but baked everything herself and all meals from scratch.
a lot of people still have gardens or are returning to gardening as a healthy option, plus a lot of women have careers which cuts down on the time it takes to do and make these things.
Let the memories run and listen and learn.
I remember my mum using the copper for the weekly wash, my Uncle would clean and polish it out every Christmas then cook the ham in it, ahhh the smells were wonderful and it would take him all day to do it. Best Ham Ive ever eaten.
When the milk arrived it was always a fight to get to the 'top' milk for our porridge as this was the creamiest part.
When we picked up the bread on our way home from school we would prize the loaves apart and get little hands down into the 'kissy' bit and pull bits off, I remember hollowing out one half once and getting a hiding for it- which I deserved.
Dad hunted so we always had venison, ducks, wild pork etc on the table. Mum kept chooks and tons of fruit trees and my Grandad had a huge vege garden. Seafood involved family and cousins etc and a whole day at the beach where a fire would be lit and the kids cooked spuds in the ashes while the gathering went on.
Same with whitebaiting when mum and the aunts (and kids) would spend hours on the river bank.
Wild blackberries were plentiful and delicious, kids always arrived home scratched and tired with purple lips and fingers.
Entertainment was a singsong around the piano accompanied by any instrument people could lay their hands on.
We loved to make pompoms using the cardboad with the hole in from the top of the milk bottles and did french knitting with cotton reels with 4 little tacks around the top.
Nobody got bored, there were always tadpoles to catch, lupin tracks to explore, swamps to conquer and trees to climb. I
Our unpasturised milk was delivered and ladeled by hand by the milkman into a Billycan left out on the front step. When bottled milk was made compulsory it was 4 pence [4 cents] a pint!
We had free apples at primary school and a free 1/2 pint of milk each school day. Our mother baked all our meals at home - we never ever went to a restaurant. On Sunday afternoon walks we knew our fathers mood - if he was in a good mood we got a 1 penny ice cream - if not then we got a 1/2 penny ice cream! Sweets of any king were a rarity in our household. Aunties spoiled us rotten at birthday times. We listened to 2ZB to hear the radio "Auntie" tell us where out presents were hidden - great fun! We had the advantage of vast empty padocks all around us in Lower Hutt - we used to take off and be away playing in the open air most of the day - or swimming in the Hutt River at Melling Bridge. I got a bicycle when I went to secondary school - needed it to deliver the Evening Post newspaper. Borrowed 12 shillngs and 6 pence from Mum to buy the bike - and paid it back a 1 shilling a week from the 2 shillings and 6 pence I earned on the delivery run. Sure, we had accidents - cut fingers, sprained ankles, measles, mumps, scarlet fever and the like. These were treated as "part of our growing up" and treated mainly at home. No running off to the doctor because a toe was sore!
I grew up on the outskirts of inner city auckland, the IGA van came around to deliver grocerys, you dropped your shopping list off thru the week, the vegie mans truck came weekly, the milk came in bottles, in rural areas in holidays we got it in billy cans. Fish n' chips for school lunch on a friday was like the ulitmate treat (we always ate fish on fridays) nearly everything was home made, including our clothes, Butcher shops were much the same as real butcher shops today. 5 jaffas for a penny. McD's, KFC, etc didnt exist.
remember the family outings to pick blackberries & mushrooms in season...off we would go with a picnic lunch (jam sandwiches, & fruit cake), & pick buckets of blackberries...they would be made into jam, or preserved for pies in the winter...the mushrooms would be eaten fresh, or preserved for stews etc later...
Us kids would go to the local milking shed, each morning, with the billy, & get milk straight out of the cow...still warm, with a thick crust of cream on top! Nana used to have a scoop for getting the cream off the top...when she got a milk seperator, we would fight for the privilege of turning the handle & seeing the milk & cream coming out of different funnels...lol
Our bread came each day from the local bakery....still hot from the ovens...we would each get a slice, with butter & golden syrup melting & dripping from the heat...YUMMMMMMM
The butcher would be phoned with an order, & shortly after the butcher boy would pant into view on his bike, to deliver the meat...poor wee bugger would always have bruised & scratched legs, from peoples dogs humping his leg...LMAO
The only packet food I remember was Jelly, which we had as a treat, every Sunday night with bottled fruit & cream!
Biscuits came in large tins and were weighed as requested for customers, supermarkets hadnt yet been invented, flour sugar etc all had to be weighed for the customer. Meat and veg was the norm and food was roasted in dripping or lard not cooked with oil as we do now so probably the fat intake was much higher than today. Wholemilk was the only option and came with several inches of cream on the top. Butter was the only option as no margarine available in NZ anyway. I remember being served yoghurt in my teens when that first came on the market and thinking it was quite exotic. Most mums baked so there was not the wide choice of chocolate biscuits etc we have now. I can even remember my mother mincing up liver and making dog biscuits
We had free apples at primary school and a free 1/2 pint of milk each school day. Our mother baked all our meals at home - we never ever went to a restaurant. On Sunday afternoon walks we knew our fathers mood - if he was in a good mood we got a 1 penny ice cream - if not then we got a 1/2 penny ice cream! Sweets of any king were a rarity in our household. Aunties spoiled us rotten at birthday times. We listened to 2ZB to hear the radio "Auntie" tell us where out presents were hidden - great fun! We had the advantage of vast empty padocks all around us in Lower Hutt - we used to take off and be away playing in the open air most of the day - or swimming in the Hutt River at Melling Bridge. I got a bicycle when I went to secondary school - needed it to deliver the Evening Post newspaper. Borrowed 12 shillngs and 6 pence from Mum to buy the bike - and paid it back a 1 shilling a week from the 2 shillings and 6 pence I earned on the delivery run. Sure, we had accidents - cut fingers, sprained ankles, measles, mumps, scarlet fever and the like. These were treated as "part of our growing up" and treated mainly at home. No running off to the doctor because a toe was sore!
I grew up on the outskirts of inner city auckland, the IGA van came around to deliver grocerys, you dropped your shopping list off thru the week, the vegie mans truck came weekly, the milk came in bottles, in rural areas in holidays we got it in billy cans. Fish n' chips for school lunch on a friday was like the ulitmate treat (we always ate fish on fridays) nearly everything was home made, including our clothes, Butcher shops were much the same as real butcher shops today. 5 jaffas for a penny. McD's, KFC, etc didnt exist.
remember the family outings to pick blackberries & mushrooms in season...off we would go with a picnic lunch (jam sandwiches, & fruit cake), & pick buckets of blackberries...they would be made into jam, or preserved for pies in the winter...the mushrooms would be eaten fresh, or preserved for stews etc later...
Us kids would go to the local milking shed, each morning, with the billy, & get milk straight out of the cow...still warm, with a thick crust of cream on top! Nana used to have a scoop for getting the cream off the top...when she got a milk seperator, we would fight for the privilege of turning the handle & seeing the milk & cream coming out of different funnels...lol
Our bread came each day from the local bakery....still hot from the ovens...we would each get a slice, with butter & golden syrup melting & dripping from the heat...YUMMMMMMM
The butcher would be phoned with an order, & shortly after the butcher boy would pant into view on his bike, to deliver the meat...poor wee bugger would always have bruised & scratched legs, from peoples dogs humping his leg...LMAO
The only packet food I remember was Jelly, which we had as a treat, every Sunday night with bottled fruit & cream!
Biscuits came in large tins and were weighed as requested for customers, supermarkets hadnt yet been invented, flour sugar etc all had to be weighed for the customer. Meat and veg was the norm and food was roasted in dripping or lard not cooked with oil as we do now so probably the fat intake was much higher than today. Wholemilk was the only option and came with several inches of cream on the top. Butter was the only option as no margarine available in NZ anyway. I remember being served yoghurt in my teens when that first came on the market and thinking it was quite exotic. Most mums baked so there was not the wide choice of chocolate biscuits etc we have now. I can even remember my mother mincing up liver and making dog biscuits
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Kilbirnie-Lyall Bay Community Centre oral history project.
Life history interviews with seven long-term residents of Kilbirnie and Lyall Bay. All participants have had long associations with the houses they lived in at the time of the interviews. Two still lived in the houses they were born in, another had lived in his house since he was four years old and two others were the children of the builders and lived in houses built by their fathers. Participants were born between 1910 and 1932 and discuss the houses they live in, often family homes; the shops and services available when they were children; changes in the two Wellington suburbs; family life, routines and relationships; their activities as children; and major events such as the Centennial Exhibition and the building of Wellington Airport at Rongotai.
Kilbirnie-Lyall Bay Community Centre oral history project.
Interviews by Hugo Manson
Commissioned by - Kilbirnie-Lyall Bay Community Centre in association with the Kilbirnie Library
OHColl-0403
1993
6 interviews - 17 tapes C60
Alexander Turnbull Library : Oral History Collection
http://ead.natlib.govt.nz/kilbirnie/OHColl-0403view.html
Kilbirnie-Lyall Bay Community Centre oral history project.
Interviews by Hugo Manson
Commissioned by - Kilbirnie-Lyall Bay Community Centre in association with the Kilbirnie Library
OHColl-0403
1993
6 interviews - 17 tapes C60
Alexander Turnbull Library : Oral History Collection
http://ead.natlib.govt.nz/kilbirnie/OHColl-0403view.html
Sunday, January 17, 2010
1950s memories Food and Other
19 Funny now we 50+ kids survived entertaining ourselves with very little in the way of toys and assets. We had the first telly in the street and I can say that was mark for life beginning a radical change. We were able to see what Americans were doing, how much they had in their homes, how they travelled. Up until then it was just peoples stories of travel etc.
Friday school lunch was a pie and donut for 1/6d. The rest of the week was strawberry jam or luncheon sausage sandwiches.
Our mother made all our clothes, from blouses, shorts, school dresses, gym frocks to trousers, undies etc. The only thing I remember being bought from Rendalls or Farmers was singlets and white socks.
Farmers yearly Hector sale was the place to go. We would take the early tram and then the Farmers free bus in and line up at the door. Mum would go head down butt up into the huge bargin bin barrels.
Im not sure that the 50's were better times, just different. Sure we grew all our own food but travel, technology etc was very limited. The 40's and 50's were a very time consuming era, washing took forever in the old copper, dishes were a chore and there were miles of them, homework took forever having to write and rewrite everything (no computers and printers)..Encyclopedias were out of date as soon as you bought them. Now kids have a vast array of information at their finger tips
I think that its probably about merging things that were done well in the past, such as growing our own preservative, chemical free food and embracing the new technology and using it in the best way we can for our families. But JMO
Friday school lunch was a pie and donut for 1/6d. The rest of the week was strawberry jam or luncheon sausage sandwiches.
Our mother made all our clothes, from blouses, shorts, school dresses, gym frocks to trousers, undies etc. The only thing I remember being bought from Rendalls or Farmers was singlets and white socks.
Farmers yearly Hector sale was the place to go. We would take the early tram and then the Farmers free bus in and line up at the door. Mum would go head down butt up into the huge bargin bin barrels.
Im not sure that the 50's were better times, just different. Sure we grew all our own food but travel, technology etc was very limited. The 40's and 50's were a very time consuming era, washing took forever in the old copper, dishes were a chore and there were miles of them, homework took forever having to write and rewrite everything (no computers and printers)..Encyclopedias were out of date as soon as you bought them. Now kids have a vast array of information at their finger tips
I think that its probably about merging things that were done well in the past, such as growing our own preservative, chemical free food and embracing the new technology and using it in the best way we can for our families. But JMO
13I am almost 65 and lots of memories in these above posts.The packet food that I remember is 'Instant Puddings' My sister and I used to pinch 1 or 2 and mix up,put in fridge,and eat the lot,and then get rid of any evidence, before Mum and Dad got home from the milking.This was after walking home 3 miles from school.I could go on and on and on
14 My monday lunch came in a packet at primary school.. Put my order in before the bell at 9am and lunch was delivered to the classroom at 12.. Yes it was 1 piece of fish and a scoop of chips for the princly sum of 1 shilling....For you young ones that was 10 cents lol....
15 Aaaah yes, the old copper boiling away in the wash-house, holding a handful of wooden pegs for Mum to hang the washing out. Corner dairies, with locked, covered shelves, so you couldn't buy certain things on weekends. Buying a HUGE bag of broken biscuits for 3d, and hoping you would get plenty of chockie ones. Going to midnight movies at the Tivoli theatre in the square. A shilling got me a bus into town, my ticket to the movie, an ice-cream and a "small" lolly mixture at half time. Then the scary walk home afterwards. Later, in my late pre-teens, I got a job as an ice-cream boy at the Chrystal Palace. The ice-creams were frozen solid..how any-one ate them I'll never know. The cone used to be all soft and soggy. Maths weren't too good in the old pouds, shillings, and pence days so my empty tray always went back - short of money lol
16 I was bought up on a farm in the early years of my life. I remember my mother making all our sauces, bottling all our fruit, making and bottling spaghetti, preserving eggs, beans and other veges out of the garden that she had going. Bread was delivered (unsliced) every day by the mailman. Milk and cream was fresh - straight from the cow and dad killed a sheep when the freezer was getting empty. Didnt have to buy biscuits because there is nothing like home made baking and she did the lot.
17 my mum used to feed 5 of us on one med tin of baked beans for lunch on a sat. my hubby laughs and says it mustve been a big tin. it wasnt.i dont remember not having a little on toast. now i could eat 1/2 tin on my own....and fish/chips was a friday thing, for 9pence. for a shilling, i think you got a rasp bun or something....i was a lunch monitor, in form 2, and when to the shop by the school to get the orders, they were put in a trolley, that we wheeled back to school, and the shop man used to give us all the crunchy bits....oh those were the days.....
18 The Sunday afternoon request show on 3ZB. Had to write in for a song to be played and it could take weeks before your name was read out. My 1st bike, with up-turned handlebars, balloon tyres, and fixed hub. 1st job, delivering telegrams from the Post Office in the square. Biking way up Papanui Rd to find no-one home, leaving a note to say a telegram was waiting for them, writing OLN on the envelope and handing it back to the supervisor. The joy of having a phone put in. Still remember the number..75-406. Making a pistol out of wooden clothes pegs. Climbing trees. Skinny dipping in the river on my uncles farm. Men and boys 1st, then women and girls later. Army cadets at high school. 78rpm records, 45's and LP's. transistor radios, a "drive in the country" to go Saturday shopping at Brighton.
Born in 1948 in Merseyside - used to have lamb shoulder - blade end for sunday lunch - timed to have dessert at 1pm to get to local shop to buy block of ice cream - no fridge, of course. Memories of mum with a dolly tub and hand agitator - manual wringer - what a hard job!!
Always had a cooked breakfast - mum never liked fish & chip shops - only ever ate out on big shopping days in Liverpool - Littlewoods or Lewis's. B&W tv with BBC only - I wasn't allowed to turn it on. Chicken was a luxury - we never ate beef unless stewing or pork unless sausages. Had big garden with new potatoes, peas, beans, apples and goosberries - mum's gooseberry tart was to die for!
Used to travel on public bus by myself for 30 minutes each way to get to school as a 7 year old.
14 My monday lunch came in a packet at primary school.. Put my order in before the bell at 9am and lunch was delivered to the classroom at 12.. Yes it was 1 piece of fish and a scoop of chips for the princly sum of 1 shilling....For you young ones that was 10 cents lol....
15 Aaaah yes, the old copper boiling away in the wash-house, holding a handful of wooden pegs for Mum to hang the washing out. Corner dairies, with locked, covered shelves, so you couldn't buy certain things on weekends. Buying a HUGE bag of broken biscuits for 3d, and hoping you would get plenty of chockie ones. Going to midnight movies at the Tivoli theatre in the square. A shilling got me a bus into town, my ticket to the movie, an ice-cream and a "small" lolly mixture at half time. Then the scary walk home afterwards. Later, in my late pre-teens, I got a job as an ice-cream boy at the Chrystal Palace. The ice-creams were frozen solid..how any-one ate them I'll never know. The cone used to be all soft and soggy. Maths weren't too good in the old pouds, shillings, and pence days so my empty tray always went back - short of money lol
16 I was bought up on a farm in the early years of my life. I remember my mother making all our sauces, bottling all our fruit, making and bottling spaghetti, preserving eggs, beans and other veges out of the garden that she had going. Bread was delivered (unsliced) every day by the mailman. Milk and cream was fresh - straight from the cow and dad killed a sheep when the freezer was getting empty. Didnt have to buy biscuits because there is nothing like home made baking and she did the lot.
17 my mum used to feed 5 of us on one med tin of baked beans for lunch on a sat. my hubby laughs and says it mustve been a big tin. it wasnt.i dont remember not having a little on toast. now i could eat 1/2 tin on my own....and fish/chips was a friday thing, for 9pence. for a shilling, i think you got a rasp bun or something....i was a lunch monitor, in form 2, and when to the shop by the school to get the orders, they were put in a trolley, that we wheeled back to school, and the shop man used to give us all the crunchy bits....oh those were the days.....
18 The Sunday afternoon request show on 3ZB. Had to write in for a song to be played and it could take weeks before your name was read out. My 1st bike, with up-turned handlebars, balloon tyres, and fixed hub. 1st job, delivering telegrams from the Post Office in the square. Biking way up Papanui Rd to find no-one home, leaving a note to say a telegram was waiting for them, writing OLN on the envelope and handing it back to the supervisor. The joy of having a phone put in. Still remember the number..75-406. Making a pistol out of wooden clothes pegs. Climbing trees. Skinny dipping in the river on my uncles farm. Men and boys 1st, then women and girls later. Army cadets at high school. 78rpm records, 45's and LP's. transistor radios, a "drive in the country" to go Saturday shopping at Brighton.
Born in 1948 in Merseyside - used to have lamb shoulder - blade end for sunday lunch - timed to have dessert at 1pm to get to local shop to buy block of ice cream - no fridge, of course. Memories of mum with a dolly tub and hand agitator - manual wringer - what a hard job!!
Always had a cooked breakfast - mum never liked fish & chip shops - only ever ate out on big shopping days in Liverpool - Littlewoods or Lewis's. B&W tv with BBC only - I wasn't allowed to turn it on. Chicken was a luxury - we never ate beef unless stewing or pork unless sausages. Had big garden with new potatoes, peas, beans, apples and goosberries - mum's gooseberry tart was to die for!
Used to travel on public bus by myself for 30 minutes each way to get to school as a 7 year old.
8 Who could forget those old agitator washing machines and the twin concrete tubs! My Mum had a washboard she still used for the longest time.
In those days, for baby wear etc, we grated Sunlight soap [Lux flakes were expensive]! No such thing as fabric softners. We used Blueo in the final rinse for the whites!
No clothes driers so it was hang what you could outside to get dry as possible then bring in and hang over the wooden clothes horse to dry off!
I bought my Mum a clothes drier when they first came out. The model which looks like a fridge - Activair. The had a heating element in the bottom so just blew air upwards. Had about 3 sets of moveable racks - darn, nappies used to dry as hard as nails!
Then at some stage along came twin tub machines.
9 Hogget for Christmas Day as it was cheaper and as Dad would say, it had more taste than lamb!
At one stage they had a freezer and it was Dad who would saw a side of sheep [probably mutton] up for Mum to pack. I can remember tearing the kidney out!
Shreddo was bought in a packet. Suet bought from the butcher.
Mmmm. those roly poly type puds!
Puds were often cooked in a steamer or boiled. Can remember Mum washing loads of mutton cloth for puds.
Mum for years, baked her own Christmas puds and cakes. In those days, she would put 3d [three pence] coins in the pud and one only 6d [six pence piece] so if you got the 6d piece, you were lucky!
Puds were served with custard; for tea, we'd have trifle!
Then along came Ernest Adams and as us girls were working, we softened Mum up by buying her puds and a cake!
Homemade mint sauce was a must on the table for many a meal.
Sunday was traditionally a mid-day roast followed by cold meat, pickles and salad for tea in summer; cold meat, mashed spud & pickles for tea. Darn she could slice the lettuce so darn fine and I've never been able to do it the same!
I think every lunch and dinner, the table was set with the bread board, bread knife, loaf of bread and of course, the block of butter.
Sliced bread wasn't on the market then!
With the amount of meat and fats [butter] we used to eat, it was no wonder so many had gallbladder problems!
Traditional roasts for Christmas, were served up until Mom passed away. Now the family is so scattered, I look back and think how nice it was to have 'family' all in one place and why I treasured Thanksgiving in the US - a time for family to be together!
Casseroles, deserts [who can forget those yummy creamy rice puds] cooked in pyrex dishes were in vogue here and there but for many of us, when we went back to work full time, the dishes were consigned to the back of a spare cupboard. Then when microwaves came on the scene, they came in handy again!
For many women over the years, keeping hubby's tea hot meant either keeping it in a slow oven or on top of a pot of boiling water. Oh how microwaves changed that!
When air travel become more accessible [in the 70's] and with immigrants from other countries rather then traditionally the UK, foods changed. Gone were the days of just the old pie cart and maybe a couple of greasy restaurants [hotels catered for the upmarket diner].
I was maybe 8 when the local milk bar opened which also served pea, pie & pud! Who can [from those days] forget the milkbars and the jukeboxes!
I still have several of my Mum's kitchen tools and baking tins!
Before I left the States, my daughter took an array of things, in particular, glass dishes, bowls etc.
My daughter is currently visiting from the US and has been frustrated at the lack of choices in the stores here v what she is used to. I have pretty much adapted back though I do admit to missing cheap veggies 12 months of the year and certain products and foods, but as she has known nothing else, it's been hard for her.
My daughter is finiky in that she uses little product that is in a can.
She makes just about everything from scratch buying from organic etc type stores. She doesn't own a toaster; the only reason she has a toaster oven is I bought one during one of my stays and told her she could do what she liked with it when I left - her hubby put his foot down and said 'it stays'. She would not have a microwave if she had her way [hubby bought one] - she doesn't use it! I think the only other appliance she has is a blender. Every appliance I have sent her she has donated to thrift stores [she reckons I had every appliance that came on the market]. Yeah, she's into 'healthy living'..
Reality is, I may have seen so many changes in my lifetime but they are little compared to what my parents/grandparents went through in theirs. Makes me a lot more grateful of what I've had avalable & been able to take advantage of.
10 The times certainly were different
I remember much of what others have written , but also we had a gas meter in the kitchen and we used to feed 1 shilling coins into it , I'm not sure how long that lasted.. but it was a "priviledge in our house..lol .. and we had a copper in the wash house which was an "outside" room. Mum used to boil the copper for the washing , she used a wash board too ,and for our bath , which wasnt every day. I think it was Saturday nights , so we were bright and shiny for church on Sunday .. lmao. Sunday morning we piled into mum and dads bed and listened to sunday morning requests on the national radio.. I remember Sparky and the talking train , the selfish giant, rumplestiltskin , just to name a couple !
Going to the butcher was neat cause he would give you a savaloy, and there was always sawdust all over the floor and Mum would get the blue stripe meat cos the red stripe meat was too expensive and we used to get Duck eggs for baking.
The green grocer van used to come to the end of the street and he would ring a bell and all the mothers would go out and get Veges, and he sold tuppeny packs of chewing gum.
Across the road from where we lived was the most amazing place called Tiny Town. The man had made this village on his front lawn it had the most brilliant wee things , you had to see it to believe it , and i spent heaps of time there.
It sure was a different world .. much simpler.. much happier ..much easier.. I dont know what my Parents thought tho.. I guess they still had worries , it just wasnt made known to us ..................
11 All of the above - gosh it brings back memories alright. I remember going to the Queesntown camping ground on hol with family of us 5 kids and mum and dad and the milk man came around with a ladle thingee and poured our milk into billy cans up by the camp store on shelves with our name on the billy. No crap in our lunch boxes, no crap after school, no crap as a treat on every visit to the supermarket, no crap as a reward. We didn't have 'rewards' our behaviour was just expected to be pretty good and we got it when it wasn't. We ate healthy and well and I know mum and dad struggled at times. Now mum's gone and I think about those times even more and how they looked after us all.
12 I, too, am in my sixties, but I was the eldest in a family of six, and was expected to help both my mother AND father with the work around the house and farm. Oh, it was much simpler then, but damned hard, sometimes tedious, work for the people who had to stay home and do it. Of course I remember the good times, but I also remember bucketing boiling water from the copper into the bath or the washing machine. I remember scrubbing and polishing what seemed like acres of lino by hand, keeping the Aga going with wood scavenged from round the farm by the kids and chopped by Dad. You had to plan ahead to feed the family and grow your food (we did, anyway) - no nipping down to the corner store.... or even buying ready-prepared food if it was available.
I'm glad I learned how to be truely independant of shops, and I still get a HUGE sense of achievement when I see my shelves full of jams and preserves and wine at the end of autumn, but lets not get all misty eyed about it - our parents worked REALLY hard to keep us fed and clothed!
In those days, for baby wear etc, we grated Sunlight soap [Lux flakes were expensive]! No such thing as fabric softners. We used Blueo in the final rinse for the whites!
No clothes driers so it was hang what you could outside to get dry as possible then bring in and hang over the wooden clothes horse to dry off!
I bought my Mum a clothes drier when they first came out. The model which looks like a fridge - Activair. The had a heating element in the bottom so just blew air upwards. Had about 3 sets of moveable racks - darn, nappies used to dry as hard as nails!
Then at some stage along came twin tub machines.
9 Hogget for Christmas Day as it was cheaper and as Dad would say, it had more taste than lamb!
At one stage they had a freezer and it was Dad who would saw a side of sheep [probably mutton] up for Mum to pack. I can remember tearing the kidney out!
Shreddo was bought in a packet. Suet bought from the butcher.
Mmmm. those roly poly type puds!
Puds were often cooked in a steamer or boiled. Can remember Mum washing loads of mutton cloth for puds.
Mum for years, baked her own Christmas puds and cakes. In those days, she would put 3d [three pence] coins in the pud and one only 6d [six pence piece] so if you got the 6d piece, you were lucky!
Puds were served with custard; for tea, we'd have trifle!
Then along came Ernest Adams and as us girls were working, we softened Mum up by buying her puds and a cake!
Homemade mint sauce was a must on the table for many a meal.
Sunday was traditionally a mid-day roast followed by cold meat, pickles and salad for tea in summer; cold meat, mashed spud & pickles for tea. Darn she could slice the lettuce so darn fine and I've never been able to do it the same!
I think every lunch and dinner, the table was set with the bread board, bread knife, loaf of bread and of course, the block of butter.
Sliced bread wasn't on the market then!
With the amount of meat and fats [butter] we used to eat, it was no wonder so many had gallbladder problems!
Traditional roasts for Christmas, were served up until Mom passed away. Now the family is so scattered, I look back and think how nice it was to have 'family' all in one place and why I treasured Thanksgiving in the US - a time for family to be together!
Casseroles, deserts [who can forget those yummy creamy rice puds] cooked in pyrex dishes were in vogue here and there but for many of us, when we went back to work full time, the dishes were consigned to the back of a spare cupboard. Then when microwaves came on the scene, they came in handy again!
For many women over the years, keeping hubby's tea hot meant either keeping it in a slow oven or on top of a pot of boiling water. Oh how microwaves changed that!
When air travel become more accessible [in the 70's] and with immigrants from other countries rather then traditionally the UK, foods changed. Gone were the days of just the old pie cart and maybe a couple of greasy restaurants [hotels catered for the upmarket diner].
I was maybe 8 when the local milk bar opened which also served pea, pie & pud! Who can [from those days] forget the milkbars and the jukeboxes!
I still have several of my Mum's kitchen tools and baking tins!
Before I left the States, my daughter took an array of things, in particular, glass dishes, bowls etc.
My daughter is currently visiting from the US and has been frustrated at the lack of choices in the stores here v what she is used to. I have pretty much adapted back though I do admit to missing cheap veggies 12 months of the year and certain products and foods, but as she has known nothing else, it's been hard for her.
My daughter is finiky in that she uses little product that is in a can.
She makes just about everything from scratch buying from organic etc type stores. She doesn't own a toaster; the only reason she has a toaster oven is I bought one during one of my stays and told her she could do what she liked with it when I left - her hubby put his foot down and said 'it stays'. She would not have a microwave if she had her way [hubby bought one] - she doesn't use it! I think the only other appliance she has is a blender. Every appliance I have sent her she has donated to thrift stores [she reckons I had every appliance that came on the market]. Yeah, she's into 'healthy living'..
Reality is, I may have seen so many changes in my lifetime but they are little compared to what my parents/grandparents went through in theirs. Makes me a lot more grateful of what I've had avalable & been able to take advantage of.
10 The times certainly were different
I remember much of what others have written , but also we had a gas meter in the kitchen and we used to feed 1 shilling coins into it , I'm not sure how long that lasted.. but it was a "priviledge in our house..lol .. and we had a copper in the wash house which was an "outside" room. Mum used to boil the copper for the washing , she used a wash board too ,and for our bath , which wasnt every day. I think it was Saturday nights , so we were bright and shiny for church on Sunday .. lmao. Sunday morning we piled into mum and dads bed and listened to sunday morning requests on the national radio.. I remember Sparky and the talking train , the selfish giant, rumplestiltskin , just to name a couple !
Going to the butcher was neat cause he would give you a savaloy, and there was always sawdust all over the floor and Mum would get the blue stripe meat cos the red stripe meat was too expensive and we used to get Duck eggs for baking.
The green grocer van used to come to the end of the street and he would ring a bell and all the mothers would go out and get Veges, and he sold tuppeny packs of chewing gum.
Across the road from where we lived was the most amazing place called Tiny Town. The man had made this village on his front lawn it had the most brilliant wee things , you had to see it to believe it , and i spent heaps of time there.
It sure was a different world .. much simpler.. much happier ..much easier.. I dont know what my Parents thought tho.. I guess they still had worries , it just wasnt made known to us ..................
11 All of the above - gosh it brings back memories alright. I remember going to the Queesntown camping ground on hol with family of us 5 kids and mum and dad and the milk man came around with a ladle thingee and poured our milk into billy cans up by the camp store on shelves with our name on the billy. No crap in our lunch boxes, no crap after school, no crap as a treat on every visit to the supermarket, no crap as a reward. We didn't have 'rewards' our behaviour was just expected to be pretty good and we got it when it wasn't. We ate healthy and well and I know mum and dad struggled at times. Now mum's gone and I think about those times even more and how they looked after us all.
12 I, too, am in my sixties, but I was the eldest in a family of six, and was expected to help both my mother AND father with the work around the house and farm. Oh, it was much simpler then, but damned hard, sometimes tedious, work for the people who had to stay home and do it. Of course I remember the good times, but I also remember bucketing boiling water from the copper into the bath or the washing machine. I remember scrubbing and polishing what seemed like acres of lino by hand, keeping the Aga going with wood scavenged from round the farm by the kids and chopped by Dad. You had to plan ahead to feed the family and grow your food (we did, anyway) - no nipping down to the corner store.... or even buying ready-prepared food if it was available.
I'm glad I learned how to be truely independant of shops, and I still get a HUGE sense of achievement when I see my shelves full of jams and preserves and wine at the end of autumn, but lets not get all misty eyed about it - our parents worked REALLY hard to keep us fed and clothed!
memories 1950s
6 Mum doing the washing that took all friggen day with the old agetator (sp), going blackberry picking and helping to make the jam, taking lunch down to the paddock for the men doing the silage or hay, hell I loved it back then, its all changed now.
7 My Mum used to do her own preserving i.e. bottled fruits, beetroot and tomatoes, jams, tomato relish, chutnies; salted beans into large crocks. Also fill large crocks with pickled onions and red cabbage.
Bread was bought at the store or made at home; milk was delivered.
Dad grew most of our veggies - he always had a couple of big compost bins going. If he was away or she needed something, a vendor came from memory once a week in much the way Mr Whippy comes around.
Chicken was a luxury and only bought for special occasions such as Christmas Day. Our refrigerator had just an icebox so it was up to the store when we wanted ice-cream for desert.
My Mom from time to time, did make homemade icecream and chocolate [no fancy machines to help her either].
Well when we moved to Hei Hei, the nearest grocery shopping was at Stills General Store over in Hornby which meant a long walk there and back if Dad was away which was quite often because of his job.
One car/Mum never learnt to drive.
There was a small rather expensive range available at Patel's Garage but we avoided buying there. Back in those days [the 50's], stores weren't allowed to sell certain items including toilet paper on a Sunday so Patel's had a smaller side store with a separate entrance for Sunday trading. From memory they were caught several times selling prohibited items!
At some stage, a fish and chip shop opened so that became a meal once in a blue moon.
At a later date, a strip 'mall' of stores was built locally in Hei Hei which included a grocery store and a 4 Square - both stores delivered!
There was a habadashery store and a radio store along with a Post Office and Chemist. Then a butcher and a newspaper/book store. Can still remember going to the book store to pick up my weekly comic! I still have my Mum's cane shopping basket.
Lunches were homemade but at least once a month, we were allowed to buy our lunch. This was either a pie or fish and chips [had to be ordered before class commenced]. My sister was one year, in an old classroom that was heated by a barrel type wood heater - they used to put spuds in it.
Biscuits - my Mum had been a cook so she baked everything. However now and again she would buy a box of Aulsebrooks broken biscuits. We'd all sit around the table sorting out the 'good' ones and putting them in cake tins; the rest went into other tins to be made into fudge.
Cake - a very special treat if one was bought!
Drinks: Tea [leaf no bags in those days]; bottled coffee with chicory, cocoa and I think Milo/Bournvita was around too.
Sodas - All I can remember was Ballins!
I still remember the day Pepsi first hit the stores.
We made our own ginger beer!
Breakfasts were usually toast, Weetbix or porridge.
We had supper before going to bed. In winter, we had this large blackened kettle that was filled and heated over the open fire in the lounge [which also was connected to the hot water tank].
Many a night we made toast over the fire using a long handled toasting fork!
In those days, there was no such thing as tv so we had our favourite radio programmes to listen to at night. Somewhere in my young school days, a thing called the Hit Parade started once a week on the radio!
The only cans I can remember were spagetti, baked beans and tomato sauce!
Other than sweets [candy], I can't remember any chips or the likes.
When I got married in the late 60's, I still continued with preserving and making relishes. In fact, I still today make my own tomato relish [and did so the whole 20 years I lived in the US!]. I gave up preserving in the 70's when canned fruit etc became more readily available.
When freezers became part of our lives, we switched to freezing veggies for the winter; and of course, supermarkets by then had changed our lives as we could buy meat in bulk to freeze.
I used to make my own bread during the time of bread strikes!
BTW I am in my 60's....and it's after 2am....
7 My Mum used to do her own preserving i.e. bottled fruits, beetroot and tomatoes, jams, tomato relish, chutnies; salted beans into large crocks. Also fill large crocks with pickled onions and red cabbage.
Bread was bought at the store or made at home; milk was delivered.
Dad grew most of our veggies - he always had a couple of big compost bins going. If he was away or she needed something, a vendor came from memory once a week in much the way Mr Whippy comes around.
Chicken was a luxury and only bought for special occasions such as Christmas Day. Our refrigerator had just an icebox so it was up to the store when we wanted ice-cream for desert.
My Mom from time to time, did make homemade icecream and chocolate [no fancy machines to help her either].
Well when we moved to Hei Hei, the nearest grocery shopping was at Stills General Store over in Hornby which meant a long walk there and back if Dad was away which was quite often because of his job.
One car/Mum never learnt to drive.
There was a small rather expensive range available at Patel's Garage but we avoided buying there. Back in those days [the 50's], stores weren't allowed to sell certain items including toilet paper on a Sunday so Patel's had a smaller side store with a separate entrance for Sunday trading. From memory they were caught several times selling prohibited items!
At some stage, a fish and chip shop opened so that became a meal once in a blue moon.
At a later date, a strip 'mall' of stores was built locally in Hei Hei which included a grocery store and a 4 Square - both stores delivered!
There was a habadashery store and a radio store along with a Post Office and Chemist. Then a butcher and a newspaper/book store. Can still remember going to the book store to pick up my weekly comic! I still have my Mum's cane shopping basket.
Lunches were homemade but at least once a month, we were allowed to buy our lunch. This was either a pie or fish and chips [had to be ordered before class commenced]. My sister was one year, in an old classroom that was heated by a barrel type wood heater - they used to put spuds in it.
Biscuits - my Mum had been a cook so she baked everything. However now and again she would buy a box of Aulsebrooks broken biscuits. We'd all sit around the table sorting out the 'good' ones and putting them in cake tins; the rest went into other tins to be made into fudge.
Cake - a very special treat if one was bought!
Drinks: Tea [leaf no bags in those days]; bottled coffee with chicory, cocoa and I think Milo/Bournvita was around too.
Sodas - All I can remember was Ballins!
I still remember the day Pepsi first hit the stores.
We made our own ginger beer!
Breakfasts were usually toast, Weetbix or porridge.
We had supper before going to bed. In winter, we had this large blackened kettle that was filled and heated over the open fire in the lounge [which also was connected to the hot water tank].
Many a night we made toast over the fire using a long handled toasting fork!
In those days, there was no such thing as tv so we had our favourite radio programmes to listen to at night. Somewhere in my young school days, a thing called the Hit Parade started once a week on the radio!
The only cans I can remember were spagetti, baked beans and tomato sauce!
Other than sweets [candy], I can't remember any chips or the likes.
When I got married in the late 60's, I still continued with preserving and making relishes. In fact, I still today make my own tomato relish [and did so the whole 20 years I lived in the US!]. I gave up preserving in the 70's when canned fruit etc became more readily available.
When freezers became part of our lives, we switched to freezing veggies for the winter; and of course, supermarkets by then had changed our lives as we could buy meat in bulk to freeze.
I used to make my own bread during the time of bread strikes!
BTW I am in my 60's....and it's after 2am....
1950s memories Food and Other
1 I can remember the old IGA van coming out to the farm to deliver our groceries, god knows what the labels said back then. The old Rawleys man use to come around and the family Priest for tea. Going to church on a Sunday was the highlight of the week lol. We probably didnt worry too much what food pkts said as Mum did home baking all the time (home made pies, youghurt etc) and Dad had a vegie garden
2 I will be 50 next year, hubby will be 50 in a couple of weeks.
No, there wasn't a lot of stuff in packets. The only thing I really remember was when the cake mixes came out and Mum thought they were great. I remember getting a packet mix birthday cake and I hated it!
Every week we would do a grocery shop. There were no big supermarkets, just corner shops like Keystore and Four Square. You bought your veges fresh, usually from the kiosks at the side of the road that belonged to farms, or you grew your own. Meat came from the butcher, again once a week you would go down with the list and bring it home. If you were lucky, you got fish n chips once a week. Fizzy drink was for special occasions, probably around twice a year, Christmas and birthdays. We bought that by the crate from Ballins, swap a crate they were. We had around sixpence or 5 cents spending money for lollies, again, once a week.
People ate good, healthy food. We had the meat and 2 vege type meals. My parents had immigrated from Holland so we had a lot of good Dutch cooking as well. I can't remember any families or friends that ate very differently. We usually had dessert as well, it would be icecream, or sponge cake, cream, custards in winter.
Our lunches were homemade, we didn't have packet biscuits much. In my class of 48 kids, only one girl brought packet biscuits to school and she was the envy of everyone else. There was only one type of potato chip available and that was Smiths, which I love and you can only get in Australia.
We didn't eat chicken much. It was very expensive and was kept for Christmas or New Years Day dinner.
People bottled excess stuff out of their gardens in Summer to take them through Winter. There wasn't a lot of frozen stuff available, it was mostly cans, or dried, both of which we had when we went camping.
Grocery stores were only open Monday to Friday. If you ran out of something you waited till Monday. No one bought from the dairy, far too expensive and usually stale. We did have Sunday bread, fresh bread from the dairy on a Sunday. Yum.
We had milk and bread delivered every day.
I don't remember ever being hungry and food tasted great.
3 Takeaways was Fish and Chips no more than once a week and usually on a Friday night. I was brought up on meat and 3 veg and eat whats on your plate or go hungry and yum who can forget the Sunday hogget roast. Chippies and lollies were a treat not everyday.
4 Gosh that brings back the memory, just a couple of things different in my life back then was we went to the Greengrocer for vegs and fruit, and we only had milk delivered every day to the letterbox not bread. I chuckle nowdays when I see the panic buying at the supermarket if they are to be closed the next day which is about three days a year because we managed fine when they were closed from Friday 5.30 till Monday 9am
5 I miss them as well...sunday roast.....sunday bath lol.....baking day thursday.....fresh home grown veggies fruit iff the trees and rows of bottled fruit and home made jams in the store cupboard
2 I will be 50 next year, hubby will be 50 in a couple of weeks.
No, there wasn't a lot of stuff in packets. The only thing I really remember was when the cake mixes came out and Mum thought they were great. I remember getting a packet mix birthday cake and I hated it!
Every week we would do a grocery shop. There were no big supermarkets, just corner shops like Keystore and Four Square. You bought your veges fresh, usually from the kiosks at the side of the road that belonged to farms, or you grew your own. Meat came from the butcher, again once a week you would go down with the list and bring it home. If you were lucky, you got fish n chips once a week. Fizzy drink was for special occasions, probably around twice a year, Christmas and birthdays. We bought that by the crate from Ballins, swap a crate they were. We had around sixpence or 5 cents spending money for lollies, again, once a week.
People ate good, healthy food. We had the meat and 2 vege type meals. My parents had immigrated from Holland so we had a lot of good Dutch cooking as well. I can't remember any families or friends that ate very differently. We usually had dessert as well, it would be icecream, or sponge cake, cream, custards in winter.
Our lunches were homemade, we didn't have packet biscuits much. In my class of 48 kids, only one girl brought packet biscuits to school and she was the envy of everyone else. There was only one type of potato chip available and that was Smiths, which I love and you can only get in Australia.
We didn't eat chicken much. It was very expensive and was kept for Christmas or New Years Day dinner.
People bottled excess stuff out of their gardens in Summer to take them through Winter. There wasn't a lot of frozen stuff available, it was mostly cans, or dried, both of which we had when we went camping.
Grocery stores were only open Monday to Friday. If you ran out of something you waited till Monday. No one bought from the dairy, far too expensive and usually stale. We did have Sunday bread, fresh bread from the dairy on a Sunday. Yum.
We had milk and bread delivered every day.
I don't remember ever being hungry and food tasted great.
3 Takeaways was Fish and Chips no more than once a week and usually on a Friday night. I was brought up on meat and 3 veg and eat whats on your plate or go hungry and yum who can forget the Sunday hogget roast. Chippies and lollies were a treat not everyday.
4 Gosh that brings back the memory, just a couple of things different in my life back then was we went to the Greengrocer for vegs and fruit, and we only had milk delivered every day to the letterbox not bread. I chuckle nowdays when I see the panic buying at the supermarket if they are to be closed the next day which is about three days a year because we managed fine when they were closed from Friday 5.30 till Monday 9am
5 I miss them as well...sunday roast.....sunday bath lol.....baking day thursday.....fresh home grown veggies fruit iff the trees and rows of bottled fruit and home made jams in the store cupboard
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
SOSPAN FACH
SOSPAN FACH: The Saga of the Little Saucepan
SYNOPSIS – ABRIDGED VERSION
On April 7, 1974, five people leave Auckland, New Zealand, aboard an amateur-built ferro-cement yacht, the Sospan Fach (Little Saucepan), named after a rugby song from in Wales. They are headed for Sydney, Australia. The vessel has no motor, radio, extra sails, or instrumentation. The skipper has a nine-dollar compass and an inexpensive sextant on which he has no professional training. There is a lifeboat designed to carry only one person and a single life preserver. They carry provisions sufficient for a three-week journey. None of the crew has any deep-water sailing experience. Their navigational plan is to sail three days north and then turn left; Australia is so large one couldn’t miss it. The crew ends up stranded for six weeks on Middleton Reef before being rescued by another vessel that happens only accidentally to be in the area.
ITHNAN NICKELSON is a carpenter by trade … now. As a kid in Wales, he sits by the side of the bay and dreams of building and owning his own yacht. Following one scrape after another, he is sentenced to serve in the British Merchant Service, where he continues to get into trouble. Involved in a fight in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Ithnan jumps ship and goes to work at the Bougainville Copper Project on Bougainville Island in the Solomons. After a year at the mines, he returns to Port Moresby and gets involved with the smuggling of exotic pets and brandy.
Stopped at sea by the Aussie Coast Guard, Ithnan discovers that the smuggling of these items is merely a ruse to move large quantities of heroin. He escapes capture, dumps the heroin overboard, and scuttles his boat, much to the chagrin of the syndicate kingpin, Mr. Asia himself, Martin Johnstone, who puts out a contract on Ithnan’s life. Ithnan catches a plane to Brisbane and takes a train to Sydney, where he tries to draw upon the bank accounts he has opened. Unable to do so, Ithnan flees to New Zealand, where for three years he works as a carpenter’s helper and builds his yacht, with the help of TONY BENETTI, a garage mechanic who teaches Ithnan to weld. Benetti’s real name is Terry Clark, an underworld figure operating in the New Zealand drug trade under an alias, and a member of the Mr. Asia syndicate. Aware of who Ithnan is, Benetti will settle the contract score, but not until Ithnan has performed an important service.
PHILIP LUNDQUIST is the oldest sibling of a very large family of boys. He has no job. He has no plans to pursue higher education, and he is about to graduate from secondary school. He lives with his family in a small and crowded home near Melbourne, Australia, and decides he might just as well travel. He knows he can get tourist season work in the hotels in Brisbane, Queensland, on Australia’s gold coast. During his train ride north he encounters another young man desirous to obtain a recruiting bonus if he can persuade Philip to go to New Zealand to pick apples. Philip joins the apple pickers in New Zealand. The work is hard and the money is good. But Philip, who has been a marijuana user, encounters some native drugs, including the so-called “magic mushrooms,” and a root known as Kava, which when ground and placed in an apple drink keeps him a little on the high side. He runs into trouble with the management of the apple picking effort, leaves, and finds work moving furniture. Thoroughly sick of it all, he now decides to go home, but he has no money for the airfare. While living at a hostel in Auckland, he sees a notice on a bulletin board that leads him to think he can get a ride back to Australia for free.
COLLEEN BAKER is an emotionally suppressed graduate of a college in Adelaide, South Australia. The daughter of a passive father and a straight-laced Anglican mother, Colleen is kept at or near home until she has completed her university work. She has a brief romantic encounter with a fellow student who is drafted for, and subsequently dies in, the Vietnam War. After university, she takes a teaching position in Darwin, Northern Territory, where, unfortunately, all the available suitors seem to be troops rotating to and from Vietnam. Running away from that, she accepts a research position with a hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. She enjoys her work, and in the process lives with a co-worker from Ireland. Returning from a research trip she discovers that he has a wife and family back in Ireland and, in disgust, she moves out of the apartment they had shared and into an Auckland hostel. It is there that she reads the newspaper and sees the ad.
GEORGINA YARNELL is the stepdaughter of a barren couple who run a poultry farm south of Auckland. Adopted as a child from a Chinese orphanage run by their church, Georgina grows to young adulthood and subsequently pursues nurse’s training at another Auckland hospital. At the end of a very exhausting year, Georgina is faced with the question of how to spend the hiatus between schooling periods. Following a difficult interchange between herself and her supervision, Georgina decides to take a holiday, rather than to go home, and when a co-worker draws her attention to the ad in the newspaper, Georgina decides that a fortnight’s cruise to Sydney would be just the diversion she needs.
The ad is an invitation for an all-female crew for a shakedown cruise to Sydney. Ithnan places it in the New Zealand Herald in the belief that being surrounded by females for the trip could have possibilities. While the ad draws many curiosity seekers, all but two—Georgina and Colleen—take a look at the vessel and at its middle-aged skipper, bewhiskered, unkempt, and possessing sinister-looking eyes, and decide to pass up the offer. Of the two women, Georgina is the more foolhardy, as she spends much pre-voyage time at the boat and is warned against the trip by the man who had designed the rigging, MAX CARTER. Colleen, now close friends with a married doctor, accepts what she sees and what he says, but insists that there be a fourth crewmember, even if that person happens to be male. She places a notice on the bulletin board at the hostel.
Nickelson knows the vessel is ill equipped and he declares that because of his Welsh citizenship, it is not necessary to have the vessel licensed or inspected for approval of a deep-sea voyage by New Zealand authorities. Nobody disavows him of that notion. Further, because he is carrying contraband cargo, Nickelson avoids any potential inspection. To get some tips on handling the vessel, he takes a sailing lesson around the harbor, and grounds the yacht against a sea wall. Upon departure, he experiences an inordinate amount of difficulty leaving the Auckland harbor, and once out of the harbor he ignores the requests of the women to put about and return them to land. He finally “agrees,” but is reluctant to keep his word, owing to the contraband cargo. And suddenly, the vessel and its crew is clear of the northwestern tip of New Zealand and into the Tasman Sea, theoretically heading for Australia. There is physical conflict between Philip and Ithnan. Georgina is too sick to protest much. Colleen whines and complains.
Because of Ithnan’s ineptitude, the vessel runs aground on Middleton Reef, 800 miles off course, and the site of many prior shipwrecks. Within walking distance at low tide is a wrecked Japanese fishing trawler, and the four take up residence on the Fuku Maru #7, where they reside for six weeks, struggling to stay fed and healthy, and dealing with interpersonal relations problems. Philip develops his courage. Georgina finds her voice. Colleen continues to whine. On the vessel, the skipper appears to be going mad, attempting to keep the others from eating the available food and suggesting that he is capable of murder. The other three discuss mutiny. The Sospan Fach breaks up and both Ithnan and Philip discover cocaine powder floating in the bilge water.
DIETER WAGNER is the skipper of a fishing trawler, the Hammerblitz, operating out of Fiji. The vessel has recently received an equipment modification in the New South Wales (Australia) city of Ballina and is undergoing sea trials when a gale comes up and pushes the Hammerblitz 400 miles to the east, into the vicinity of Middleton Reef. Wagner’s crew discovers the presence of people on the stranded Japanese fishing trawler, while those stranded become aware of the new vessel’s presence, several miles away. For several days, until the seas calm, there are signal attempts, and eventually the crew of the Hammerblitz rescues the castaways and returns them to Ballina. Ithnan, aware of the incriminating nature of the contraband cargo, does not mention it. Neither does Philip, owing to a “gentleman’s agreement” not to spill the beans on the other’s contraband. What neither knows, however, is that the cocaine is merely the tip of the cargo, that several million dollars in gold are also secreted in the Sospan. The gold is lost in the Tasman Sea.
Once back on Australian soil, Philip, Colleen, and Georgina meet their parents and return to their respective homes. Ithnan proceeds to Sydney and takes a room in the city’s red light district, intent on using some of the local services. “Representatives” of the Mr. Asia syndicate follow Ithnan and dispense underworld justice. Back in Auckland, now very aware that neither the drugs nor the gold has found its way to Australia, Tony Benetti assumes that his days are numbered, and when syndicate “representatives” come to beat him, he assumes that they are there to kill him, and dispatches the men himself.
Now that there is a contract on him, Benetti adopts another alias and with an accomplice escapes to London, and now traveling under the alias Terence Alexander Sinclair, begins to settle scores all over the world. In the process, Mr. Asia, Martin Johnstone is attracted to London, where Sinclair, aware that he is a syndicate target, is gaily spreading the syndicate’s money. Johnstone personally goes after Sinclair. Johnstone’s syndicate bosses place a contract upon Johnstone and Sinclair picks up that contract. Johnstone’s body is found nude, weighted, hands severed, teeth extracted, and torso gutted in a flooded quarry north of Liverpool. And folks wonder why Sinclair, in the apparent peak of good health dies quite suddenly while in Parkhurst Prison.
SYNOPSIS – ABRIDGED VERSION
On April 7, 1974, five people leave Auckland, New Zealand, aboard an amateur-built ferro-cement yacht, the Sospan Fach (Little Saucepan), named after a rugby song from in Wales. They are headed for Sydney, Australia. The vessel has no motor, radio, extra sails, or instrumentation. The skipper has a nine-dollar compass and an inexpensive sextant on which he has no professional training. There is a lifeboat designed to carry only one person and a single life preserver. They carry provisions sufficient for a three-week journey. None of the crew has any deep-water sailing experience. Their navigational plan is to sail three days north and then turn left; Australia is so large one couldn’t miss it. The crew ends up stranded for six weeks on Middleton Reef before being rescued by another vessel that happens only accidentally to be in the area.
ITHNAN NICKELSON is a carpenter by trade … now. As a kid in Wales, he sits by the side of the bay and dreams of building and owning his own yacht. Following one scrape after another, he is sentenced to serve in the British Merchant Service, where he continues to get into trouble. Involved in a fight in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Ithnan jumps ship and goes to work at the Bougainville Copper Project on Bougainville Island in the Solomons. After a year at the mines, he returns to Port Moresby and gets involved with the smuggling of exotic pets and brandy.
Stopped at sea by the Aussie Coast Guard, Ithnan discovers that the smuggling of these items is merely a ruse to move large quantities of heroin. He escapes capture, dumps the heroin overboard, and scuttles his boat, much to the chagrin of the syndicate kingpin, Mr. Asia himself, Martin Johnstone, who puts out a contract on Ithnan’s life. Ithnan catches a plane to Brisbane and takes a train to Sydney, where he tries to draw upon the bank accounts he has opened. Unable to do so, Ithnan flees to New Zealand, where for three years he works as a carpenter’s helper and builds his yacht, with the help of TONY BENETTI, a garage mechanic who teaches Ithnan to weld. Benetti’s real name is Terry Clark, an underworld figure operating in the New Zealand drug trade under an alias, and a member of the Mr. Asia syndicate. Aware of who Ithnan is, Benetti will settle the contract score, but not until Ithnan has performed an important service.
PHILIP LUNDQUIST is the oldest sibling of a very large family of boys. He has no job. He has no plans to pursue higher education, and he is about to graduate from secondary school. He lives with his family in a small and crowded home near Melbourne, Australia, and decides he might just as well travel. He knows he can get tourist season work in the hotels in Brisbane, Queensland, on Australia’s gold coast. During his train ride north he encounters another young man desirous to obtain a recruiting bonus if he can persuade Philip to go to New Zealand to pick apples. Philip joins the apple pickers in New Zealand. The work is hard and the money is good. But Philip, who has been a marijuana user, encounters some native drugs, including the so-called “magic mushrooms,” and a root known as Kava, which when ground and placed in an apple drink keeps him a little on the high side. He runs into trouble with the management of the apple picking effort, leaves, and finds work moving furniture. Thoroughly sick of it all, he now decides to go home, but he has no money for the airfare. While living at a hostel in Auckland, he sees a notice on a bulletin board that leads him to think he can get a ride back to Australia for free.
COLLEEN BAKER is an emotionally suppressed graduate of a college in Adelaide, South Australia. The daughter of a passive father and a straight-laced Anglican mother, Colleen is kept at or near home until she has completed her university work. She has a brief romantic encounter with a fellow student who is drafted for, and subsequently dies in, the Vietnam War. After university, she takes a teaching position in Darwin, Northern Territory, where, unfortunately, all the available suitors seem to be troops rotating to and from Vietnam. Running away from that, she accepts a research position with a hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. She enjoys her work, and in the process lives with a co-worker from Ireland. Returning from a research trip she discovers that he has a wife and family back in Ireland and, in disgust, she moves out of the apartment they had shared and into an Auckland hostel. It is there that she reads the newspaper and sees the ad.
GEORGINA YARNELL is the stepdaughter of a barren couple who run a poultry farm south of Auckland. Adopted as a child from a Chinese orphanage run by their church, Georgina grows to young adulthood and subsequently pursues nurse’s training at another Auckland hospital. At the end of a very exhausting year, Georgina is faced with the question of how to spend the hiatus between schooling periods. Following a difficult interchange between herself and her supervision, Georgina decides to take a holiday, rather than to go home, and when a co-worker draws her attention to the ad in the newspaper, Georgina decides that a fortnight’s cruise to Sydney would be just the diversion she needs.
The ad is an invitation for an all-female crew for a shakedown cruise to Sydney. Ithnan places it in the New Zealand Herald in the belief that being surrounded by females for the trip could have possibilities. While the ad draws many curiosity seekers, all but two—Georgina and Colleen—take a look at the vessel and at its middle-aged skipper, bewhiskered, unkempt, and possessing sinister-looking eyes, and decide to pass up the offer. Of the two women, Georgina is the more foolhardy, as she spends much pre-voyage time at the boat and is warned against the trip by the man who had designed the rigging, MAX CARTER. Colleen, now close friends with a married doctor, accepts what she sees and what he says, but insists that there be a fourth crewmember, even if that person happens to be male. She places a notice on the bulletin board at the hostel.
Nickelson knows the vessel is ill equipped and he declares that because of his Welsh citizenship, it is not necessary to have the vessel licensed or inspected for approval of a deep-sea voyage by New Zealand authorities. Nobody disavows him of that notion. Further, because he is carrying contraband cargo, Nickelson avoids any potential inspection. To get some tips on handling the vessel, he takes a sailing lesson around the harbor, and grounds the yacht against a sea wall. Upon departure, he experiences an inordinate amount of difficulty leaving the Auckland harbor, and once out of the harbor he ignores the requests of the women to put about and return them to land. He finally “agrees,” but is reluctant to keep his word, owing to the contraband cargo. And suddenly, the vessel and its crew is clear of the northwestern tip of New Zealand and into the Tasman Sea, theoretically heading for Australia. There is physical conflict between Philip and Ithnan. Georgina is too sick to protest much. Colleen whines and complains.
Because of Ithnan’s ineptitude, the vessel runs aground on Middleton Reef, 800 miles off course, and the site of many prior shipwrecks. Within walking distance at low tide is a wrecked Japanese fishing trawler, and the four take up residence on the Fuku Maru #7, where they reside for six weeks, struggling to stay fed and healthy, and dealing with interpersonal relations problems. Philip develops his courage. Georgina finds her voice. Colleen continues to whine. On the vessel, the skipper appears to be going mad, attempting to keep the others from eating the available food and suggesting that he is capable of murder. The other three discuss mutiny. The Sospan Fach breaks up and both Ithnan and Philip discover cocaine powder floating in the bilge water.
DIETER WAGNER is the skipper of a fishing trawler, the Hammerblitz, operating out of Fiji. The vessel has recently received an equipment modification in the New South Wales (Australia) city of Ballina and is undergoing sea trials when a gale comes up and pushes the Hammerblitz 400 miles to the east, into the vicinity of Middleton Reef. Wagner’s crew discovers the presence of people on the stranded Japanese fishing trawler, while those stranded become aware of the new vessel’s presence, several miles away. For several days, until the seas calm, there are signal attempts, and eventually the crew of the Hammerblitz rescues the castaways and returns them to Ballina. Ithnan, aware of the incriminating nature of the contraband cargo, does not mention it. Neither does Philip, owing to a “gentleman’s agreement” not to spill the beans on the other’s contraband. What neither knows, however, is that the cocaine is merely the tip of the cargo, that several million dollars in gold are also secreted in the Sospan. The gold is lost in the Tasman Sea.
Once back on Australian soil, Philip, Colleen, and Georgina meet their parents and return to their respective homes. Ithnan proceeds to Sydney and takes a room in the city’s red light district, intent on using some of the local services. “Representatives” of the Mr. Asia syndicate follow Ithnan and dispense underworld justice. Back in Auckland, now very aware that neither the drugs nor the gold has found its way to Australia, Tony Benetti assumes that his days are numbered, and when syndicate “representatives” come to beat him, he assumes that they are there to kill him, and dispatches the men himself.
Now that there is a contract on him, Benetti adopts another alias and with an accomplice escapes to London, and now traveling under the alias Terence Alexander Sinclair, begins to settle scores all over the world. In the process, Mr. Asia, Martin Johnstone is attracted to London, where Sinclair, aware that he is a syndicate target, is gaily spreading the syndicate’s money. Johnstone personally goes after Sinclair. Johnstone’s syndicate bosses place a contract upon Johnstone and Sinclair picks up that contract. Johnstone’s body is found nude, weighted, hands severed, teeth extracted, and torso gutted in a flooded quarry north of Liverpool. And folks wonder why Sinclair, in the apparent peak of good health dies quite suddenly while in Parkhurst Prison.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The day a shadow fell
IT'S a wintry Auckland day, but the Mediterranean sun of nearly 70 years ago illuminates Jack Middleton's room at the Ranfurly Veterans Home.
The old soldier is at work on one of his tapestries, a hobby he began to while away the wet winter evenings when farming on the Hauraki Plains after his "overseas trip".
The tapestries are very good but, colourful as they are, his needlework can't compete with his war stories.
For the next hour the former carpenter, soldier and farmer is no longer 91 and plagued by angina and a gammy knee.
He's a 21-year-old back in a leaking eight-man army tent in Ngaruawahia in 1939; then on board the Orion a few months later as the converted passenger liner pulls away from the dock, taking the First Echelon to the Middle East.
That first day in Egypt monuments, mates and mischief. Good times.
Then Greece. Rumbling, oncoming tanks, hundreds of them. Crete, and parachutists, thousands of them. Bad times.
Back to Cairo. So many faces missing.
The colonel who saw him as officer material (no thanks).
Libya, and fixing bayonets for a night charge on Belhamid.
El Alamein, and shrapnel in the knee.
Coming home, and opening an unexpected letter from the War Department. It said he didn't have to go back to the war.
And the day he and his fellow carpenters on an Auckland state housing construction site put down their saws and hammers and went into town for a drink. World War II was over.
Jack's war started as it ended - on a building site.
He remembers the announcement on the radio but didn't stop hammering nails just because a world war had broken out. No one was hysterical about it, he said, and there was a job to be done for the Lands and Survey Department at Kerepehi, south of Ngatea on the Hauraki Plains.
A couple of days later Jack rode his pushbike 12 miles to Paeroa to sign on - the first in the town to do so when enlistment opened. There was another job to be done.
Besides, he adds: "I wasn't going to get a trip overseas otherwise."
Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage prophetically warned that it would be a long, bitter conflict. Even so, who would have predicted war between then-allies Germany and Russia, and World War I allies America and Japan?
The impact on New Zealand was enormous, perhaps more than Savage could have envisaged, had he lived to see it. In September 1939, the New Zealand Army numbered 2500. Three years later, one in eight Kiwis was in uniform, when the Home Guard is taken into account, and by then the war accounted for half the nation's economic activity. Twelve thousand New Zealanders died, one in 130.
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But Jack recalls that the mood on board the Orion was optimistic when she sailed on January 5, 1940. And why not? He had left school in the midst of the Great Depression, yet here they were, at the start of an experience they had never had before. Travelling in style, too; they had two-berth cabins, luxury compared to the army training camp at Ngaruawahia.There was even a full orchestra. And stewards.
"We still had to drill and march around the decks."
And when the First Echelon landed in Egypt, the overseas experience was everything it promised. On their first day at Maadi Camp their colonel marched them into Cairo for a look around, and they "saw everything there was to see", Jack says, with a twinkle in his eye. That's a reference to the Wagh el Birket, the infamous red-light district.
They visited the museums, the zoo, the brewery (where the Kiwis were not invited back). And the English tea gardens, until someone was rude to one of their hostesses, who turned out to be Lady Astor. The Kiwis were not invited back.
His mate, Bruce, would "drink like a fish, he wouldn't go to sleep until he'd kissed everyone good night".
The New Zealanders were seeing the world, but the bill was about to arrive. For all their training, Jack recalls, they had "no idea what was coming".
Of the 700 men in 18 Battalion who left Egypt for Athens at the start of March 1941, fewer than half assembled back at Maadi Camp after the disasters of Greece and Crete. "We had 420 reinforcements, that was how many we lost, killed or prisoner."
Their first night in Athens was spent in a cemetery after their arrival on the Ajax, and they were sent by train to Salonika.
"We had no equipment, just rifles, no tanks, or air support, they had everything."
He remembers the Germans pushing unwilling Italians in front, forcing them to fight.
"We were pushed back..." A slight pause. "Never mind."
Bitterly, the New Zealanders noted Winston Churchill's public claims that the Allies did have air support in Greece. "One bloke said, if the air force is in Greece then where the hell are we?"
At least Churchill showed up in Egypt later, Jack says. "He came tearing along in a jeep, he said 'hello, kiss my arse' and was gone again."
It's no surprise to hear that Jack was a PBP Poor Bloody Private from start to finish, even though battalion commander Colonel Jan Peart offered him officer training after Crete.
Jack was mentioned in dispatches after El Alamein, and nominated for a military medal, but in the end the only metalwork he collected was the shrapnel in his knee in the battle. The wound was "nothing" he says (Peart, the former headmaster of King's College, Auckland, died of wounds on September 4, 1942).
Jack wasn't to know it, but the Allied victories in North Africa meant his war was coming to an end.
"Strafed in the desert and bombed out in Crete
With sore dark eyes and hardened by the heat"
James K Baxter, "Returned Soldier"
In July 1943, after three years away, the first furlough draft of 2NZEF returned to New Zealand. To their disgust, they found they had been fighting a very different war from those at home who had found ways to gain exemption from active service.
"We all decided we wouldn't go back, there were so many jokers walking around in civvy clothes."
Public opinion swung behind the soldiers, and Jack says that those who did go back were mostly given tasks away from the front, such as driving. In his own case his mother was ill his father died in 1929 and Jack was given six months' compassionate leave, albeit without pay. Then in June 1944, to his complete surprise, the letter from the War Department arrived to say he was discharged.
The quiet life followed building, farming, working for Hellaby's in the bacon factory, and raising two children.
It's nearly spring now, meaning it's time to see the daffodils in bloom on his son's farm at Pukekawa. The Ranfurly has its own outings and activities they look after him well, Jack says, and he keeps himself busy with tapestries, surrounded by people who can identify with his war experiences.
But they've never been that far away. Years after the war, on an evening when he took his wife out for dinner at the Thames RSA, a familiar voice boomed across the room: "I kissed you good night over there and I'm going to kiss you good night again now!"
Keen Auckland sailor Con Thode went to work as usual on September 3, 1939, despite the morning news.
After all, he and his yachting friends had seen the war clouds gathering for months and had taken steps towards gaining the qualifications they would need to serve in the navy.
But although his first rank was "Acting probationary temporary sub-lieutenant", he never expected to see the war through a periscope.
The living room of the 98-year-old's home at Okura, north of Auckland, is testament to four years of service with distinction in submarines. In one corner is the ship's bell from the Scythian, which he commanded. On one wall is an artist's impression, published in the Illustrated London News, of a head-on collision between his first submarine, the Proteus, and an Italian destroyer off the Greek coast.
At 98, Con retains an alertness that belies his years, and, although some of the memories are a bit hazy now, he clearly remembers how he nearly didn't make it to sea at all.
In 1939 the New Zealand division of the Royal Navy wasn't recruiting, and would-be officers thinking of joining the Royal Navy in Singapore were advised that "private means" were a prerequisite.
Disgusted at the elitism, Con enlisted in the infantry, only to learn from a fellow crew member on the yacht Iorangi that an Auckland yachtmaster's ticket would open doors in London. Sailing community contacts helped him "un-enlist" and he left New Zealand for the first time, working his way to England on the Port Darwin, and arriving to a London of sandbags and gasmasks.
Training in Brighton and convoy escort duty on corvettes followed, where the only sign of the other side was a Focke-Wulf Condor circling out of range.
But Con's war changed course in 1941 when the Luftwaffe dropped a parachute mine on the Liverpool Adelphi Hotel, killing some of his fellow diners. "It just got to the stage when it all seemed so hopeless," he says.
It turned out to be a case of mood matching opportunity, because the next day, after he had picked his way through glass and rubble to report for duty, he learned that the Royal Navy was looking for submarine volunteers.
Over the next four years Con was twice mentioned in dispatches after patrols that sank troopships in the Aegean and protected the Allies' Arctic convoys.
And there was an enormous party for his crew and everyone else in Trincomalee harbour, Sri Lanka, on the day it was all over.
"There was supposedly a great shortage of booze, it was amazing how much appeared that night. Rockets and flares... it was a big night."
It was over, except it wasn't. Back in New Zealand, he married and returned to his old job of working for chemicals giant ICI, but could not fit back into civilian life. He cleared his head by going farming at Matakana, near where he now lives.
He has a fantastic view of the sea, and given those days and nights of dim lighting and stale air, he surely appreciates the sunshine and salt air more than most.
"Near miss", says the caption in neat capital letters. Understatement isn't the word, given that the image it accompanies is of a German bomb landing close to HMS Leander in the Mediterranean.
Leander veteran Des Price, 89, enlarges: "A near miss could be worse than a direct hit, a near miss alongside a ship could open her up."
This photo album is surreal, the result of some entrepreneurial spirit by a camera-toting crew member who would pin prints to a board and sell copies to willing buyers. Another picture shows a half dozen of the cruiser's crew grinning on a sunny day. It could be anyone's holiday snaps if not for the steel helmets and the neat handwriting noting that they have just helped fight off an air attack.
"That was taken on my 17th birthday," says Des's Leander shipmate Bill Morland, 85, pointing to a picture of himself and two other sailors. Shortly after the shutter clicked, the crew were at action stations to repel aircraft.
If you were an historian trying to capture the spirit of the New Zealand experience of World War II, you could give up on the words and just run these pictures a sepia world of Sydney swimsuit beauties and exotic ports of call Bombay, Colombo, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean. And the Solomons, when there was no "near miss". They were lucky to survive; 33 of their crewmates didn't.
Bill Morland clearly remembers September 3, 1939. He was on leave in his home town, Dunedin, and had already been in the navy since the age of 15-and-a-half "I used to see all the ships coming in with all the pomp and ceremony and thought it would be a good life."
No sooner had the radio announced the news when his brother appeared in the Octagon with a telegram ordering him to report back to HMS Philomel, the naval base in Auckland. The declaration of war came as a shock, he recalls. "When you're young you don't really think about world events."
Des, originally from Levin but now living in Auckland, heard the announcement on the Leander's tannoy, on the way back from the cruiser's first mission. New Zealand had not waited for the outbreak, given what happened at Fanning Island (now Kiribati) in World War I, when the German raider Nurnberg shelled the cable station and disrupted communications across the Pacific. The small garrison Leander was carrying 1 platoon A company, special Service Force became known as "The men who beat the gun", Des recalls.
The two veterans admit they had no idea what was in store; Des thought the war would last maybe a year while Bill hoped they would be "cruising the islands in winter and New Zealand and Australia in summer".
Des, whose father had been wounded and shell-shocked in World War I, expected at least to be safer at sea, although he had been keen on the navy since primary school.
"In the navy it's 99% boredom and 1%... well..." His meticulous "summary of places of call and events" records everything from "boredom" to "well..."
On February 21, 1941, the Leander sank Ramb I, an Italian armed raider. (Almost all the crew were rescued.) The previous day: Leander's ship's cat Minnie was unfortunately lost overboard. March 16, another disaster: the ship "ran out of rum".
He knows all this because, against regulations, he also kept a diary. There's a gap, but he's glad it was only the pages he lost.
They were both on board when the Japanese torpedo struck on the night of July 11, 1943, when Leander formed part of a Pacific task force.
Des, in particular, had a lucky escape. He was working in the boiler room as part of an electrical repair party when he was called away to the other end of the cruiser. "At midnight they wanted a job done in the after engine room and took me away. A chap from Devonport took my place. One hour later there wasn't anyone left."
They were lucky to get back, says Bill. The photos show a huge hole in Leander's port side, and the cruiser would have been an easy target as she limped to safety.
You'd think that by now Des might have been rethinking the relative safety of the navy but he only got in deeper, literally. A former motor mechanic before joining the navy, his fascination with submarines was prompted by a visit aboard a seized Italian sub in Aden in 1943. He was one of four friends who volunteered.
"We used to see them going out and coming back, somehow it just got us."
He served on the Otway, Tribune and Totem, and the eventual fate of the latter is a chilling reminder of the risks he faced. Sold to Israel after the war, the submarine disappeared en route and the wreckage was found only four years ago in the Mediterranean.
"These things happen," says Des.
At Submariners' corner in the Devonport RSA there is a list of Allied submarines lost in the war, and it's a long one.
Bill ended the war on HMS Norfolk (Leander was "paid off" in 1944), and saw the Norwegians' reaction when the cruiser brought King Haakon and his family to Oslo in June 1945 after five years in exile. It was a "quite interesting" occasion, notes Bill. He was in Malta when Japan surrendered "That was a bit of a relief. We were refitting on the way to the Pacific."
He remembers arriving back in Wellington on Christmas Day 1945 "That was great. We came back on a converted aircraft carrier, all the North Islanders got off at Wellington on Christmas Eve, we sailed for Lyttleton. We had leave 'til March."
Everyone else was being demobbed but Bill and Des, being regular navy, had to report back after their leave.
And for Bill, it started all over again in Korea. After that he joined the army and served 14 years as an instructor. But when offered a tour of duty in Vietnam, he declined: "I said I wouldn't trust my luck that far."
Des concurs: "I suppose we were lucky in many ways."
Near misses, and all that.
When Esther Cochran reads an Agatha Christie thriller, the page numbers take her on a voyage around the Pacific of 70 years ago.
It's one of the odd ways the memories of her war service return, says the former Waaf (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) weather specialist.
Page 115 is Auckland; page 172 is Hamilton. The numbers are weather codes memorised as part of her years of work for the air force weather department in Suva, when Fiji was the crossroads of the Allied war effort in the Pacific.
But the 94-year-old Aucklander wishes she could remember more and regrets not recording her experiences from 1939-45. Something as mundane as a cloud formation can set off a flashback she had to know her nimbostratus from her cumulus.
"I'm very angry at myself that I didn't write things down. When you're young and things happen, you don't really register that they'll be very important, you think it doesn't matter but it does."
The former shorthand typist does recall that when the conflict broke out the War Department visited the company she worked for.
"They wanted volunteers to join His Majesty's Armed Forces. I was no more an armed force than a pussycat but I put my hand up."
Esther considered herself patriotic and saw it as her duty, but learned very quickly that doing her part would involve personal sacrifice.
The occasion was an encounter with her former manager in Queen St.
"I had quite a thing about that boss. I had a bit of a crush on him. He pumped my hand and said I was looking as lovely as ever."
But there was a war on and the regulations demanded secrecy. She couldn't tell him where she was going or what she was doing.
She volunteered for overseas service and was posted to Suva, where she plotted maps for the air force forecasters around the clock.
Esther was one of 10,000 New Zealand servicemen and women in Fiji. The official history of New Zealand notes that they were overcrowded, under-resourced and endured boredom and tropical diseases while their contribution to the war effort went largely unnoticed.
Esther was lucky to have work she considered enjoyable, but she missed her Devonport home with its magnificent oaks and pohutukawa, blackberries in the back yard, cosy fireplaces and poetry library, including her own verses and short stories. She missed the concerts her family would attend at the Auckland Town Hall.
But she did make good friends in the Waafs and, after all these years, one of them still comes to her birthday parties at the Ascot retirement home in Devonport.
It's not far from the house Esther returned to after four years in Fiji, and where she lived from the age of three months to 88 years a home of happy family memories, except for the grief that World War I visited on her family.
Despite her sense of patriotism, Esther has never had any illusions about war.
"I feel very angry when I think about the war and any wars. They are diabolical, they just are. It ruined my sister's life."
Her sister Dorothy's husband was given six weeks' leave after their marriage. He knew he had a daughter, but never lived to see her. She was six weeks old when he was killed in the Battle of the Somme.
Her brother Hector was wounded but survived and won the Military Medal.
"Wars are just dreadful. That was my sister's life ruined. They were so in love. It's just unbelievably awful. There should always be another way of settling your arguments without having a war."
Tom Shaw never spoke much about the war.
His son John, a Devonport painter, says he and his siblings would ask about it but their mother would intervene "Don't upset your father".
The Wairarapa farmer took his memories and stories to the grave, but he did leave behind a suitcase full of clues.
Showing a sense of posterity and occasion and a disregard for army regulations Gunner Shaw used his Kodak Box Brownie to record scenes ranging from the Maori Battalion on parade to his artillery unit in action.
We can guess why he singled out certain graves in the El Alamein cemetery. But we won't know the circumstances and other consequences of the air raid that resulted in the Chevrolet 4x4 (used to tow the 6th Field Regiment's 25-pounder guns) catching fire, leaving the crew to frantically shovel sand on to the blaze.
In another picture of a Chevy, there's someone else's ammunition inside. It's a dud shell that landed right next to the steering wheel.
The memorabilia Tom Shaw was perhaps proudest of was his "one-way ticket" to Europe the berthing card issued on his departure from New Zealand. He kept it for the rest of his life in a precious leather wallet which also contains small head and shoulders photos with brief captions: "Gunner V.B. Silbery. Killed in action." "Gunner R. Townhill. Killed in action."
Intriguingly, one photograph (above) shows German paratroops landing only about 100m away. On the back, a single word: "Crete".
It could be an extraordinary snapshot taken in the heat of battle, but exactly when, where and by whom is unknown. The source best-placed to comment died in August 2006, aged 87.
Tom Shaw's family can only speculate that he might have been more forthcoming to someone outside the family. But today, Google says only: "Your search `6th field regiment' `Tom Shaw' did not match any documents".
By ARTHUR WHELAN - Sunday Star Times 30 -8 -9
The old soldier is at work on one of his tapestries, a hobby he began to while away the wet winter evenings when farming on the Hauraki Plains after his "overseas trip".
The tapestries are very good but, colourful as they are, his needlework can't compete with his war stories.
For the next hour the former carpenter, soldier and farmer is no longer 91 and plagued by angina and a gammy knee.
He's a 21-year-old back in a leaking eight-man army tent in Ngaruawahia in 1939; then on board the Orion a few months later as the converted passenger liner pulls away from the dock, taking the First Echelon to the Middle East.
That first day in Egypt monuments, mates and mischief. Good times.
Then Greece. Rumbling, oncoming tanks, hundreds of them. Crete, and parachutists, thousands of them. Bad times.
Back to Cairo. So many faces missing.
The colonel who saw him as officer material (no thanks).
Libya, and fixing bayonets for a night charge on Belhamid.
El Alamein, and shrapnel in the knee.
Coming home, and opening an unexpected letter from the War Department. It said he didn't have to go back to the war.
And the day he and his fellow carpenters on an Auckland state housing construction site put down their saws and hammers and went into town for a drink. World War II was over.
Jack's war started as it ended - on a building site.
He remembers the announcement on the radio but didn't stop hammering nails just because a world war had broken out. No one was hysterical about it, he said, and there was a job to be done for the Lands and Survey Department at Kerepehi, south of Ngatea on the Hauraki Plains.
A couple of days later Jack rode his pushbike 12 miles to Paeroa to sign on - the first in the town to do so when enlistment opened. There was another job to be done.
Besides, he adds: "I wasn't going to get a trip overseas otherwise."
Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage prophetically warned that it would be a long, bitter conflict. Even so, who would have predicted war between then-allies Germany and Russia, and World War I allies America and Japan?
The impact on New Zealand was enormous, perhaps more than Savage could have envisaged, had he lived to see it. In September 1939, the New Zealand Army numbered 2500. Three years later, one in eight Kiwis was in uniform, when the Home Guard is taken into account, and by then the war accounted for half the nation's economic activity. Twelve thousand New Zealanders died, one in 130.
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But Jack recalls that the mood on board the Orion was optimistic when she sailed on January 5, 1940. And why not? He had left school in the midst of the Great Depression, yet here they were, at the start of an experience they had never had before. Travelling in style, too; they had two-berth cabins, luxury compared to the army training camp at Ngaruawahia.There was even a full orchestra. And stewards.
"We still had to drill and march around the decks."
And when the First Echelon landed in Egypt, the overseas experience was everything it promised. On their first day at Maadi Camp their colonel marched them into Cairo for a look around, and they "saw everything there was to see", Jack says, with a twinkle in his eye. That's a reference to the Wagh el Birket, the infamous red-light district.
They visited the museums, the zoo, the brewery (where the Kiwis were not invited back). And the English tea gardens, until someone was rude to one of their hostesses, who turned out to be Lady Astor. The Kiwis were not invited back.
His mate, Bruce, would "drink like a fish, he wouldn't go to sleep until he'd kissed everyone good night".
The New Zealanders were seeing the world, but the bill was about to arrive. For all their training, Jack recalls, they had "no idea what was coming".
Of the 700 men in 18 Battalion who left Egypt for Athens at the start of March 1941, fewer than half assembled back at Maadi Camp after the disasters of Greece and Crete. "We had 420 reinforcements, that was how many we lost, killed or prisoner."
Their first night in Athens was spent in a cemetery after their arrival on the Ajax, and they were sent by train to Salonika.
"We had no equipment, just rifles, no tanks, or air support, they had everything."
He remembers the Germans pushing unwilling Italians in front, forcing them to fight.
"We were pushed back..." A slight pause. "Never mind."
Bitterly, the New Zealanders noted Winston Churchill's public claims that the Allies did have air support in Greece. "One bloke said, if the air force is in Greece then where the hell are we?"
At least Churchill showed up in Egypt later, Jack says. "He came tearing along in a jeep, he said 'hello, kiss my arse' and was gone again."
It's no surprise to hear that Jack was a PBP Poor Bloody Private from start to finish, even though battalion commander Colonel Jan Peart offered him officer training after Crete.
Jack was mentioned in dispatches after El Alamein, and nominated for a military medal, but in the end the only metalwork he collected was the shrapnel in his knee in the battle. The wound was "nothing" he says (Peart, the former headmaster of King's College, Auckland, died of wounds on September 4, 1942).
Jack wasn't to know it, but the Allied victories in North Africa meant his war was coming to an end.
"Strafed in the desert and bombed out in Crete
With sore dark eyes and hardened by the heat"
James K Baxter, "Returned Soldier"
In July 1943, after three years away, the first furlough draft of 2NZEF returned to New Zealand. To their disgust, they found they had been fighting a very different war from those at home who had found ways to gain exemption from active service.
"We all decided we wouldn't go back, there were so many jokers walking around in civvy clothes."
Public opinion swung behind the soldiers, and Jack says that those who did go back were mostly given tasks away from the front, such as driving. In his own case his mother was ill his father died in 1929 and Jack was given six months' compassionate leave, albeit without pay. Then in June 1944, to his complete surprise, the letter from the War Department arrived to say he was discharged.
The quiet life followed building, farming, working for Hellaby's in the bacon factory, and raising two children.
It's nearly spring now, meaning it's time to see the daffodils in bloom on his son's farm at Pukekawa. The Ranfurly has its own outings and activities they look after him well, Jack says, and he keeps himself busy with tapestries, surrounded by people who can identify with his war experiences.
But they've never been that far away. Years after the war, on an evening when he took his wife out for dinner at the Thames RSA, a familiar voice boomed across the room: "I kissed you good night over there and I'm going to kiss you good night again now!"
Keen Auckland sailor Con Thode went to work as usual on September 3, 1939, despite the morning news.
After all, he and his yachting friends had seen the war clouds gathering for months and had taken steps towards gaining the qualifications they would need to serve in the navy.
But although his first rank was "Acting probationary temporary sub-lieutenant", he never expected to see the war through a periscope.
The living room of the 98-year-old's home at Okura, north of Auckland, is testament to four years of service with distinction in submarines. In one corner is the ship's bell from the Scythian, which he commanded. On one wall is an artist's impression, published in the Illustrated London News, of a head-on collision between his first submarine, the Proteus, and an Italian destroyer off the Greek coast.
At 98, Con retains an alertness that belies his years, and, although some of the memories are a bit hazy now, he clearly remembers how he nearly didn't make it to sea at all.
In 1939 the New Zealand division of the Royal Navy wasn't recruiting, and would-be officers thinking of joining the Royal Navy in Singapore were advised that "private means" were a prerequisite.
Disgusted at the elitism, Con enlisted in the infantry, only to learn from a fellow crew member on the yacht Iorangi that an Auckland yachtmaster's ticket would open doors in London. Sailing community contacts helped him "un-enlist" and he left New Zealand for the first time, working his way to England on the Port Darwin, and arriving to a London of sandbags and gasmasks.
Training in Brighton and convoy escort duty on corvettes followed, where the only sign of the other side was a Focke-Wulf Condor circling out of range.
But Con's war changed course in 1941 when the Luftwaffe dropped a parachute mine on the Liverpool Adelphi Hotel, killing some of his fellow diners. "It just got to the stage when it all seemed so hopeless," he says.
It turned out to be a case of mood matching opportunity, because the next day, after he had picked his way through glass and rubble to report for duty, he learned that the Royal Navy was looking for submarine volunteers.
Over the next four years Con was twice mentioned in dispatches after patrols that sank troopships in the Aegean and protected the Allies' Arctic convoys.
And there was an enormous party for his crew and everyone else in Trincomalee harbour, Sri Lanka, on the day it was all over.
"There was supposedly a great shortage of booze, it was amazing how much appeared that night. Rockets and flares... it was a big night."
It was over, except it wasn't. Back in New Zealand, he married and returned to his old job of working for chemicals giant ICI, but could not fit back into civilian life. He cleared his head by going farming at Matakana, near where he now lives.
He has a fantastic view of the sea, and given those days and nights of dim lighting and stale air, he surely appreciates the sunshine and salt air more than most.
"Near miss", says the caption in neat capital letters. Understatement isn't the word, given that the image it accompanies is of a German bomb landing close to HMS Leander in the Mediterranean.
Leander veteran Des Price, 89, enlarges: "A near miss could be worse than a direct hit, a near miss alongside a ship could open her up."
This photo album is surreal, the result of some entrepreneurial spirit by a camera-toting crew member who would pin prints to a board and sell copies to willing buyers. Another picture shows a half dozen of the cruiser's crew grinning on a sunny day. It could be anyone's holiday snaps if not for the steel helmets and the neat handwriting noting that they have just helped fight off an air attack.
"That was taken on my 17th birthday," says Des's Leander shipmate Bill Morland, 85, pointing to a picture of himself and two other sailors. Shortly after the shutter clicked, the crew were at action stations to repel aircraft.
If you were an historian trying to capture the spirit of the New Zealand experience of World War II, you could give up on the words and just run these pictures a sepia world of Sydney swimsuit beauties and exotic ports of call Bombay, Colombo, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean. And the Solomons, when there was no "near miss". They were lucky to survive; 33 of their crewmates didn't.
Bill Morland clearly remembers September 3, 1939. He was on leave in his home town, Dunedin, and had already been in the navy since the age of 15-and-a-half "I used to see all the ships coming in with all the pomp and ceremony and thought it would be a good life."
No sooner had the radio announced the news when his brother appeared in the Octagon with a telegram ordering him to report back to HMS Philomel, the naval base in Auckland. The declaration of war came as a shock, he recalls. "When you're young you don't really think about world events."
Des, originally from Levin but now living in Auckland, heard the announcement on the Leander's tannoy, on the way back from the cruiser's first mission. New Zealand had not waited for the outbreak, given what happened at Fanning Island (now Kiribati) in World War I, when the German raider Nurnberg shelled the cable station and disrupted communications across the Pacific. The small garrison Leander was carrying 1 platoon A company, special Service Force became known as "The men who beat the gun", Des recalls.
The two veterans admit they had no idea what was in store; Des thought the war would last maybe a year while Bill hoped they would be "cruising the islands in winter and New Zealand and Australia in summer".
Des, whose father had been wounded and shell-shocked in World War I, expected at least to be safer at sea, although he had been keen on the navy since primary school.
"In the navy it's 99% boredom and 1%... well..." His meticulous "summary of places of call and events" records everything from "boredom" to "well..."
On February 21, 1941, the Leander sank Ramb I, an Italian armed raider. (Almost all the crew were rescued.) The previous day: Leander's ship's cat Minnie was unfortunately lost overboard. March 16, another disaster: the ship "ran out of rum".
He knows all this because, against regulations, he also kept a diary. There's a gap, but he's glad it was only the pages he lost.
They were both on board when the Japanese torpedo struck on the night of July 11, 1943, when Leander formed part of a Pacific task force.
Des, in particular, had a lucky escape. He was working in the boiler room as part of an electrical repair party when he was called away to the other end of the cruiser. "At midnight they wanted a job done in the after engine room and took me away. A chap from Devonport took my place. One hour later there wasn't anyone left."
They were lucky to get back, says Bill. The photos show a huge hole in Leander's port side, and the cruiser would have been an easy target as she limped to safety.
You'd think that by now Des might have been rethinking the relative safety of the navy but he only got in deeper, literally. A former motor mechanic before joining the navy, his fascination with submarines was prompted by a visit aboard a seized Italian sub in Aden in 1943. He was one of four friends who volunteered.
"We used to see them going out and coming back, somehow it just got us."
He served on the Otway, Tribune and Totem, and the eventual fate of the latter is a chilling reminder of the risks he faced. Sold to Israel after the war, the submarine disappeared en route and the wreckage was found only four years ago in the Mediterranean.
"These things happen," says Des.
At Submariners' corner in the Devonport RSA there is a list of Allied submarines lost in the war, and it's a long one.
Bill ended the war on HMS Norfolk (Leander was "paid off" in 1944), and saw the Norwegians' reaction when the cruiser brought King Haakon and his family to Oslo in June 1945 after five years in exile. It was a "quite interesting" occasion, notes Bill. He was in Malta when Japan surrendered "That was a bit of a relief. We were refitting on the way to the Pacific."
He remembers arriving back in Wellington on Christmas Day 1945 "That was great. We came back on a converted aircraft carrier, all the North Islanders got off at Wellington on Christmas Eve, we sailed for Lyttleton. We had leave 'til March."
Everyone else was being demobbed but Bill and Des, being regular navy, had to report back after their leave.
And for Bill, it started all over again in Korea. After that he joined the army and served 14 years as an instructor. But when offered a tour of duty in Vietnam, he declined: "I said I wouldn't trust my luck that far."
Des concurs: "I suppose we were lucky in many ways."
Near misses, and all that.
When Esther Cochran reads an Agatha Christie thriller, the page numbers take her on a voyage around the Pacific of 70 years ago.
It's one of the odd ways the memories of her war service return, says the former Waaf (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) weather specialist.
Page 115 is Auckland; page 172 is Hamilton. The numbers are weather codes memorised as part of her years of work for the air force weather department in Suva, when Fiji was the crossroads of the Allied war effort in the Pacific.
But the 94-year-old Aucklander wishes she could remember more and regrets not recording her experiences from 1939-45. Something as mundane as a cloud formation can set off a flashback she had to know her nimbostratus from her cumulus.
"I'm very angry at myself that I didn't write things down. When you're young and things happen, you don't really register that they'll be very important, you think it doesn't matter but it does."
The former shorthand typist does recall that when the conflict broke out the War Department visited the company she worked for.
"They wanted volunteers to join His Majesty's Armed Forces. I was no more an armed force than a pussycat but I put my hand up."
Esther considered herself patriotic and saw it as her duty, but learned very quickly that doing her part would involve personal sacrifice.
The occasion was an encounter with her former manager in Queen St.
"I had quite a thing about that boss. I had a bit of a crush on him. He pumped my hand and said I was looking as lovely as ever."
But there was a war on and the regulations demanded secrecy. She couldn't tell him where she was going or what she was doing.
She volunteered for overseas service and was posted to Suva, where she plotted maps for the air force forecasters around the clock.
Esther was one of 10,000 New Zealand servicemen and women in Fiji. The official history of New Zealand notes that they were overcrowded, under-resourced and endured boredom and tropical diseases while their contribution to the war effort went largely unnoticed.
Esther was lucky to have work she considered enjoyable, but she missed her Devonport home with its magnificent oaks and pohutukawa, blackberries in the back yard, cosy fireplaces and poetry library, including her own verses and short stories. She missed the concerts her family would attend at the Auckland Town Hall.
But she did make good friends in the Waafs and, after all these years, one of them still comes to her birthday parties at the Ascot retirement home in Devonport.
It's not far from the house Esther returned to after four years in Fiji, and where she lived from the age of three months to 88 years a home of happy family memories, except for the grief that World War I visited on her family.
Despite her sense of patriotism, Esther has never had any illusions about war.
"I feel very angry when I think about the war and any wars. They are diabolical, they just are. It ruined my sister's life."
Her sister Dorothy's husband was given six weeks' leave after their marriage. He knew he had a daughter, but never lived to see her. She was six weeks old when he was killed in the Battle of the Somme.
Her brother Hector was wounded but survived and won the Military Medal.
"Wars are just dreadful. That was my sister's life ruined. They were so in love. It's just unbelievably awful. There should always be another way of settling your arguments without having a war."
Tom Shaw never spoke much about the war.
His son John, a Devonport painter, says he and his siblings would ask about it but their mother would intervene "Don't upset your father".
The Wairarapa farmer took his memories and stories to the grave, but he did leave behind a suitcase full of clues.
Showing a sense of posterity and occasion and a disregard for army regulations Gunner Shaw used his Kodak Box Brownie to record scenes ranging from the Maori Battalion on parade to his artillery unit in action.
We can guess why he singled out certain graves in the El Alamein cemetery. But we won't know the circumstances and other consequences of the air raid that resulted in the Chevrolet 4x4 (used to tow the 6th Field Regiment's 25-pounder guns) catching fire, leaving the crew to frantically shovel sand on to the blaze.
In another picture of a Chevy, there's someone else's ammunition inside. It's a dud shell that landed right next to the steering wheel.
The memorabilia Tom Shaw was perhaps proudest of was his "one-way ticket" to Europe the berthing card issued on his departure from New Zealand. He kept it for the rest of his life in a precious leather wallet which also contains small head and shoulders photos with brief captions: "Gunner V.B. Silbery. Killed in action." "Gunner R. Townhill. Killed in action."
Intriguingly, one photograph (above) shows German paratroops landing only about 100m away. On the back, a single word: "Crete".
It could be an extraordinary snapshot taken in the heat of battle, but exactly when, where and by whom is unknown. The source best-placed to comment died in August 2006, aged 87.
Tom Shaw's family can only speculate that he might have been more forthcoming to someone outside the family. But today, Google says only: "Your search `6th field regiment' `Tom Shaw' did not match any documents".
By ARTHUR WHELAN - Sunday Star Times 30 -8 -9
The Pohutukawa Tree
IT'S one of our most famous plays, written by our most famous playwright, but it has never been professionally staged in our biggest city.
Now, nearly half a century after Bruce Mason penned The Pohutukawa Tree, Auckland Theatre Company will find out whether audiences are ready for a work that contains the line: "Where are our Maoris? Our lovely Maoris!"
The play was the country's first to deal with race relations issues. It has been studied by countless School Certificate English students and was dropped only last November from the national high school drama curriculum.
The lead role, Aroha Mataira, has been described as a "female King Lear". It was big enough to entice Rena Owen, Once Were Warriors film star, home from Los Angeles.
"This play is a slice of New Zealand theatrical history," says Owen. "But it's also a slice of who we are."
Didn't Owen's hackles rise when she heard the "lovely Maoris" line?
"That's the way it was in the 1950s," says Owen. "Maori were still very subservient, second-class citizens, trying to be very good little Maoris. A lot of people in the older generation say `what happened everybody used to get on fine'. And yes, they did. Because Maori never said boo."
The Pohutukawa Tree is the story of Aroha's ties to the land her ancestors battled for; her children who are trying to break free from her strict Christian ways; and her orchard-owning Pakeha neighbours who struggle to understand this proud and spiritual matriarch.
The Sunday Star-Times assembled director Colin McColl and the play's three Maori actors Owen, Tiare Tawera and Maria Walker to discuss the relevance of the work today.
"The unfortunate thing is that it was written in the late 1950s," says McColl. "And then we had the whole Maori renaissance, the land marches, Bastion Point, all those things, and it made the play unfashionable, because the last thing that Maori activists wanted was a play by a Pakeha that, in a way, denigrated Maori.
"Now, with the benefit of distance, we can look back and see it as a work of its time. We're trying to present it so people can say `wow, look how times have changed'. Or maybe they haven't."
Tiare Tawera plays Johnny, Aroha's wayward son. His character can't speak te reo Maori. In real life, Tawera has just voiced Spongebob Squarepants for a Maori Language Week version of the American cartoon.
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Some of the play's dialogue, says Tawera, "is definitely something to laugh about but it does bring back how it was for people back then".
Maria Walker plays his sister Queenie. "I've read that in 1951, 57% of Maori were 20 years old or younger. There was that whole thing of being colonised by the music and dance and all this wonderful stuff, that if you were a rural Maori you wanted to go to the city to experience..."
Today: "When I was 17, I could Google stuff! Back then, that naivety isolated everything."
In the play, Johnny gets drunk, Queenie gets pregnant and Aroha loses a cast-iron Christian grip on her kids. There is plenty, say this trio of actors, that is pertinent today.
"It's the lesson that happens to every generation," says Owen. "You cannot control other people."
Bruce Mason, who also wrote The End of the Golden Weather, Blood of the Lamb and Awatea, died in 1982. In a 2002 interview, his wife, Diana, said The Pohutukawa Tree was born of direct experience. Her parents ran an orchard, and the play's Pakeha protagonists were loosely based on them. It was the work, she said, that prompted Mason's realisation "that what he wanted to do with his life was write".
By 1957, he had a play. But no audience. The director of the New Zealand Players agreed to a workshop performance. Richard Campion (father of The Piano filmmaker Jane) believed the script was too risky for a full production.
"Audiences wouldn't have stomached this," confirms McColl. "Things were very, very conservative in New Zealand in the late 50s . . . the only risk today is people might think it's a dusty old piece."
It was produced by BBC TV in 1959, and McColl says a 1984 reprisal by Campion was, "a very fine production, except for the role of Aroha there were no Maori actresses of that age around. The other thing that makes it right to do now is we've just got this wealth of talent to draw from".
Rena Owen has a Maori father and a Pakeha mother. In the play, her pregnant daughter is spurned by her European lover, Roy. "My mother had been disowned by her family for marrying my father," says Owen. "When Roy rejects Queenie because he can't have brown babies, that's exactly the attitude my mother faced."
As an actor returning from London in the 1980s, Owen says she became caught between cultures. "Because back then, you had to be a `typical Maori'. Dark-as skin, bushy hair and I didn't fit that mould."
She got the part of Beth Heke in Warriors, and then watched while it took another decade for Maori film roles to emerge. "Which was in Whale Rider. Ten years. What are you supposed to do in the meantime?"
McColl: "Play Mexicans?"
And maybe it's a further sign of the times that the actors, huddled together under a blanket for warmth, burst out laughing.
A NZ Book Council essay on Mason records that, in the early 1960s, as editor of Maori news magazine Te Ao Hou, he challenged readers to ask themselves: "Since I am Maori, what part do I want it to play in my life?"
Ask that question today, and the thing is, says Owen, "being Maori ... it's not a coat that you take off and hang in the wardrobe. It's a part of your essence".
Walker says her Maori father was strapped at home and school for speaking Maori. Her world is so far removed from his, she was shocked when she discovered that in the 1950s, some establishments erected "No Maoris" signs. Now, "we've got so much to offer as young Maori and there's so much on offer for us ... so many doors open for us".
Tawera says the play is an opportunity to show how things have changed. So do the actors believe Mason's depiction of 1950s' New Zealand rings true?
"Writers are the only recorders of history," says Owen.
"If you ever want to find out what's going on in a civilisation, don't listen to the politicians. Read the writers, listen to the lyrics, go and see the stage plays. You will get more truth about your society through your artists than your politicians."
McColl says Mason simply wrote what he saw. "He was extremely sensitive to Maoris' place in New Zealand society. He wasn't the sort of man who said `let's write a provocative play that will shock everyone'. I think he was just saying... "
Owen finishes his sentence: "...this is us."
The Pohutukawa Tree, by Bruce Mason, Maidment Theatre, Auckland, September 3-26.
The way we were By KIM KNIGHT - Sunday Star Times 30 08 2009
Now, nearly half a century after Bruce Mason penned The Pohutukawa Tree, Auckland Theatre Company will find out whether audiences are ready for a work that contains the line: "Where are our Maoris? Our lovely Maoris!"
The play was the country's first to deal with race relations issues. It has been studied by countless School Certificate English students and was dropped only last November from the national high school drama curriculum.
The lead role, Aroha Mataira, has been described as a "female King Lear". It was big enough to entice Rena Owen, Once Were Warriors film star, home from Los Angeles.
"This play is a slice of New Zealand theatrical history," says Owen. "But it's also a slice of who we are."
Didn't Owen's hackles rise when she heard the "lovely Maoris" line?
"That's the way it was in the 1950s," says Owen. "Maori were still very subservient, second-class citizens, trying to be very good little Maoris. A lot of people in the older generation say `what happened everybody used to get on fine'. And yes, they did. Because Maori never said boo."
The Pohutukawa Tree is the story of Aroha's ties to the land her ancestors battled for; her children who are trying to break free from her strict Christian ways; and her orchard-owning Pakeha neighbours who struggle to understand this proud and spiritual matriarch.
The Sunday Star-Times assembled director Colin McColl and the play's three Maori actors Owen, Tiare Tawera and Maria Walker to discuss the relevance of the work today.
"The unfortunate thing is that it was written in the late 1950s," says McColl. "And then we had the whole Maori renaissance, the land marches, Bastion Point, all those things, and it made the play unfashionable, because the last thing that Maori activists wanted was a play by a Pakeha that, in a way, denigrated Maori.
"Now, with the benefit of distance, we can look back and see it as a work of its time. We're trying to present it so people can say `wow, look how times have changed'. Or maybe they haven't."
Tiare Tawera plays Johnny, Aroha's wayward son. His character can't speak te reo Maori. In real life, Tawera has just voiced Spongebob Squarepants for a Maori Language Week version of the American cartoon.
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Some of the play's dialogue, says Tawera, "is definitely something to laugh about but it does bring back how it was for people back then".
Maria Walker plays his sister Queenie. "I've read that in 1951, 57% of Maori were 20 years old or younger. There was that whole thing of being colonised by the music and dance and all this wonderful stuff, that if you were a rural Maori you wanted to go to the city to experience..."
Today: "When I was 17, I could Google stuff! Back then, that naivety isolated everything."
In the play, Johnny gets drunk, Queenie gets pregnant and Aroha loses a cast-iron Christian grip on her kids. There is plenty, say this trio of actors, that is pertinent today.
"It's the lesson that happens to every generation," says Owen. "You cannot control other people."
Bruce Mason, who also wrote The End of the Golden Weather, Blood of the Lamb and Awatea, died in 1982. In a 2002 interview, his wife, Diana, said The Pohutukawa Tree was born of direct experience. Her parents ran an orchard, and the play's Pakeha protagonists were loosely based on them. It was the work, she said, that prompted Mason's realisation "that what he wanted to do with his life was write".
By 1957, he had a play. But no audience. The director of the New Zealand Players agreed to a workshop performance. Richard Campion (father of The Piano filmmaker Jane) believed the script was too risky for a full production.
"Audiences wouldn't have stomached this," confirms McColl. "Things were very, very conservative in New Zealand in the late 50s . . . the only risk today is people might think it's a dusty old piece."
It was produced by BBC TV in 1959, and McColl says a 1984 reprisal by Campion was, "a very fine production, except for the role of Aroha there were no Maori actresses of that age around. The other thing that makes it right to do now is we've just got this wealth of talent to draw from".
Rena Owen has a Maori father and a Pakeha mother. In the play, her pregnant daughter is spurned by her European lover, Roy. "My mother had been disowned by her family for marrying my father," says Owen. "When Roy rejects Queenie because he can't have brown babies, that's exactly the attitude my mother faced."
As an actor returning from London in the 1980s, Owen says she became caught between cultures. "Because back then, you had to be a `typical Maori'. Dark-as skin, bushy hair and I didn't fit that mould."
She got the part of Beth Heke in Warriors, and then watched while it took another decade for Maori film roles to emerge. "Which was in Whale Rider. Ten years. What are you supposed to do in the meantime?"
McColl: "Play Mexicans?"
And maybe it's a further sign of the times that the actors, huddled together under a blanket for warmth, burst out laughing.
A NZ Book Council essay on Mason records that, in the early 1960s, as editor of Maori news magazine Te Ao Hou, he challenged readers to ask themselves: "Since I am Maori, what part do I want it to play in my life?"
Ask that question today, and the thing is, says Owen, "being Maori ... it's not a coat that you take off and hang in the wardrobe. It's a part of your essence".
Walker says her Maori father was strapped at home and school for speaking Maori. Her world is so far removed from his, she was shocked when she discovered that in the 1950s, some establishments erected "No Maoris" signs. Now, "we've got so much to offer as young Maori and there's so much on offer for us ... so many doors open for us".
Tawera says the play is an opportunity to show how things have changed. So do the actors believe Mason's depiction of 1950s' New Zealand rings true?
"Writers are the only recorders of history," says Owen.
"If you ever want to find out what's going on in a civilisation, don't listen to the politicians. Read the writers, listen to the lyrics, go and see the stage plays. You will get more truth about your society through your artists than your politicians."
McColl says Mason simply wrote what he saw. "He was extremely sensitive to Maoris' place in New Zealand society. He wasn't the sort of man who said `let's write a provocative play that will shock everyone'. I think he was just saying... "
Owen finishes his sentence: "...this is us."
The Pohutukawa Tree, by Bruce Mason, Maidment Theatre, Auckland, September 3-26.
The way we were By KIM KNIGHT - Sunday Star Times 30 08 2009
Whangapoua: Harbour of the Shellfish
The past is another country (or town)
THERE'S A lot of local history about. Over the past couple of decades New Zealand communities have shown a growing interest in recording and publishing their backstories. Most of our small towns have colourful histories, being entwined with such dramatic events as pioneer farming, bush clearances, gold mining, coal mining, the coming of the automobile and the impact of the world wars.
And there is now an awareness that if these stories are not written down, they could be lost forever. There is also a substantial readership for local histories, probably because our ageing population has a developing curiosity about the places where they grew up or spent family holidays. While they were young they were too preoccupied with the present to bother looking back. Now, they want to.
Local histories are usually initiated from within the community. Sometimes it's the local historical society, sometimes the town librarian, or the ratepayers' association, or a group of well-read citizens, or an interested individual. For example, Janet Riddle of the Mercury Bay Museum in Whitianga wrote and published Salt Spray and Sawdust, the history of her local area, in 1996. Its first print run of 1000 sold out, necessitating a reprint. Print runs for such books are usually short, but they sell steadily. Over on the peninsula's western coast, the Coromandel Town History Research Group collectively wrote and published In Search of the Rainbow The Coromandel Story in 2002, then followed it up with two sub-regional books, True Tales of Northern Coromandel (2002) and More True Tales of Northern Coromandel (2005). As Colleen Carmichael of the Coromandel Library points out: "Such books sell because they're written by local people whose extended families and friends all buy one." Jeanette Grant, project treasurer of The History of Epsom (2006), which had 50 contributors under the overall editorship of historian Graham Bush, reports that their book, too, was reprinted and has to date sold 1700 copies, at $65 each.
Commercial publishers generally shy away from local histories because they don't consider them a viable proposition. Penguin NZ publishing director Geoff Walker says local histories "have a local readership, and nothing wrong with that. But it depends how local and narrowly focused the book is. A history of Canterbury or the West Coast or the Coromandel, for example, would almost certainly have a wider market. And sometimes with a little editorial tinkering a book's readership can be broadened."
Local publishing of such histories places the entire production process in the hands of the people who inaugurate the project. This saves money, because the book is produced largely by a voluntary labour of love. But a crucial question still has to be answered: just who is to write it? That's a decision for the organising committee.
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My involvement with a local history project began with a phone call, in May 2008. An author was needed, to write the history of Whangapoua, on the eastern Coromandel coast. Local resident Judy Drok, one of the project's management team, showed me over Whangapoua and neighbouring New Chums beach. On the walk there we passed a long homestead, surrounded by native trees and a stone wall.
"That's the house that Alberta McLean built," Judy told me. I didn't know who Alberta was, although I was soon to find out. We walked along a track to New Chums, which I hadn't seen before. Native bush overlooked an arc of white sand. It was even more beautiful than Whangapoua beach. I decided to accept the offer.
The project was instigated by the beachside settlement's ratepayers' association, who had accorded the writing of Whangapoua's history top of a priority list of its long-term aims, the rest being environmental protection concerns. I was not a trained historian, but I have a keen interest in New Zealand history, and as I was already the author of several books of non-fiction as well as historical fiction, I was deemed suitable.
Judy Drok had been accumulating material for some time, from people who had lived or holidayed at Whangapoua, and she handed me over several file boxes of notes.
I started with Whangapoua's Maori history. The district's tangata whenua is the Mangakahia family, their tribe the Ngati Huarere, who had suffered grievously in pre-European times from incursions by Tainui and Ngapuhi war parties. In the early 1960s the family had been obliged, for financial reasons, to subdivide and sell their remaining foreshore land. In the 1990s the Mangakahia family had lodged a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal for compensation for land alienation after a succession of allegedly unjust deals with timber merchants and the Crown during the 19th century.
The published testimonies of Mangakahia family representatives mentioned their charismatic forebear, Hamiora Mangakahia (1838-1918), who had campaigned unsuccessfully for compensation from the Crown in Victorian times. I contacted the family's legal counsel, Charl Hirschfeld. In 2006 the tribunal had found in favour of the Mangakahia claim, Charl told me, but a counter-claim meant that no compensation had yet been paid.
Timber milling played a huge part in Whangapoua's past. All over the district there had been stands of kauri trees. From the 1860s onwards Pakeha timber merchants sought to fell the trees and sell them, but disputes arose over cutting rights. Some Maori sold the rights when they weren't entitled to do so; some payments were manifestly inadequate. In the 1870s the disputes spilled over into what became known as the "Log Wars". In spite of this the forests were annihilated.
As early as 1868 the land in Whangapoua's hinterland had been found to be auriferous, or gold-bearing. But it was quartz gold, meaning that substantial capital was needed to crush the rock and process it, to extract the bullion. A company was formed, the Kauri Freehold Gold Estates, and a share issue floated in 1896. In the Opitonui valley a boom town sprang up, including hotels, stores and a school. But the rock-to-bullion ratio proved uneconomic, a bust followed, and Opitonui became a ghost town, then vanished altogether.
All these events had been fully reported in the newspapers of the day, such as The Daily Southern Cross. The website http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz proved a tremendous help. There were also illuminating photographs in the Auckland Weekly News.
In the Kiwi way, the news that a book on Whangapoua was being written soon spread. People rang to tell me their stories, called in to talk, emailed or sent photos.
Chapter headings for the book now suggested themselves: pre-European tribal life, kauri deforestation and milling, the mining boom and bust, pioneer farming, "rehab" farming, reafforestation, coastal subdivision. Writing a local history, I came to realise, is like working on a very large jigsaw puzzle. Key pieces were missing but had to be found to complete the picture.
Several people had recollections of Whangapoua's most extraordinary resident, Alberta McLean (1886-1964). She was the daughter of an upper-class English couple, Henrietta and Charles Ridley, who had been the controller of the English royal household. Alberta drove an ambulance in World War I, married and divorced twice, and in 1929 emigrated to Whangapoua. There she bought land, built a 13-bedroom homestead, farmed sheep and bred Siamese cats and polo ponies. Childless, she left her estate to various charities, including the SPCA.
A founding family of Whangapoua were the Denizes, whose story runs right through the district's narrative. "Punga" Denize was a pioneer farmer and it was pastoralist Bert Denize who allowed people to camp on his land by the Te Punga stream from the 1950s through to the 1980s.
Bert's son Rob and his wife Wendy, who taught at the local school at Te Rerenga for longer than anyone else, today live in the homestead that Alberta McLean had built. It's virtually the same as it was in the 1930s with its frontage deck, grand dining room and stone wall surround. And in the hall, along with Denize family photos, is a portrait of the formidable Alberta, still looking as if she owns the place.
Whangapoua: Harbour of the Shellfish by Graeme Lay, is published by the Whangapoua History Project Group (256pp, $70) By GRAEME LAY - Sunday Star Times
Last updated 05:00 30/08/2009
Are you local?: When it came to stories, Whangapoua turned out to be a figurative and literal gold mine.
Relevant offers
THERE'S A lot of local history about. Over the past couple of decades New Zealand communities have shown a growing interest in recording and publishing their backstories. Most of our small towns have colourful histories, being entwined with such dramatic events as pioneer farming, bush clearances, gold mining, coal mining, the coming of the automobile and the impact of the world wars.
And there is now an awareness that if these stories are not written down, they could be lost forever. There is also a substantial readership for local histories, probably because our ageing population has a developing curiosity about the places where they grew up or spent family holidays. While they were young they were too preoccupied with the present to bother looking back. Now, they want to.
Local histories are usually initiated from within the community. Sometimes it's the local historical society, sometimes the town librarian, or the ratepayers' association, or a group of well-read citizens, or an interested individual. For example, Janet Riddle of the Mercury Bay Museum in Whitianga wrote and published Salt Spray and Sawdust, the history of her local area, in 1996. Its first print run of 1000 sold out, necessitating a reprint. Print runs for such books are usually short, but they sell steadily. Over on the peninsula's western coast, the Coromandel Town History Research Group collectively wrote and published In Search of the Rainbow The Coromandel Story in 2002, then followed it up with two sub-regional books, True Tales of Northern Coromandel (2002) and More True Tales of Northern Coromandel (2005). As Colleen Carmichael of the Coromandel Library points out: "Such books sell because they're written by local people whose extended families and friends all buy one." Jeanette Grant, project treasurer of The History of Epsom (2006), which had 50 contributors under the overall editorship of historian Graham Bush, reports that their book, too, was reprinted and has to date sold 1700 copies, at $65 each.
Commercial publishers generally shy away from local histories because they don't consider them a viable proposition. Penguin NZ publishing director Geoff Walker says local histories "have a local readership, and nothing wrong with that. But it depends how local and narrowly focused the book is. A history of Canterbury or the West Coast or the Coromandel, for example, would almost certainly have a wider market. And sometimes with a little editorial tinkering a book's readership can be broadened."
Local publishing of such histories places the entire production process in the hands of the people who inaugurate the project. This saves money, because the book is produced largely by a voluntary labour of love. But a crucial question still has to be answered: just who is to write it? That's a decision for the organising committee.
Ad Feedback
My involvement with a local history project began with a phone call, in May 2008. An author was needed, to write the history of Whangapoua, on the eastern Coromandel coast. Local resident Judy Drok, one of the project's management team, showed me over Whangapoua and neighbouring New Chums beach. On the walk there we passed a long homestead, surrounded by native trees and a stone wall.
"That's the house that Alberta McLean built," Judy told me. I didn't know who Alberta was, although I was soon to find out. We walked along a track to New Chums, which I hadn't seen before. Native bush overlooked an arc of white sand. It was even more beautiful than Whangapoua beach. I decided to accept the offer.
The project was instigated by the beachside settlement's ratepayers' association, who had accorded the writing of Whangapoua's history top of a priority list of its long-term aims, the rest being environmental protection concerns. I was not a trained historian, but I have a keen interest in New Zealand history, and as I was already the author of several books of non-fiction as well as historical fiction, I was deemed suitable.
Judy Drok had been accumulating material for some time, from people who had lived or holidayed at Whangapoua, and she handed me over several file boxes of notes.
I started with Whangapoua's Maori history. The district's tangata whenua is the Mangakahia family, their tribe the Ngati Huarere, who had suffered grievously in pre-European times from incursions by Tainui and Ngapuhi war parties. In the early 1960s the family had been obliged, for financial reasons, to subdivide and sell their remaining foreshore land. In the 1990s the Mangakahia family had lodged a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal for compensation for land alienation after a succession of allegedly unjust deals with timber merchants and the Crown during the 19th century.
The published testimonies of Mangakahia family representatives mentioned their charismatic forebear, Hamiora Mangakahia (1838-1918), who had campaigned unsuccessfully for compensation from the Crown in Victorian times. I contacted the family's legal counsel, Charl Hirschfeld. In 2006 the tribunal had found in favour of the Mangakahia claim, Charl told me, but a counter-claim meant that no compensation had yet been paid.
Timber milling played a huge part in Whangapoua's past. All over the district there had been stands of kauri trees. From the 1860s onwards Pakeha timber merchants sought to fell the trees and sell them, but disputes arose over cutting rights. Some Maori sold the rights when they weren't entitled to do so; some payments were manifestly inadequate. In the 1870s the disputes spilled over into what became known as the "Log Wars". In spite of this the forests were annihilated.
As early as 1868 the land in Whangapoua's hinterland had been found to be auriferous, or gold-bearing. But it was quartz gold, meaning that substantial capital was needed to crush the rock and process it, to extract the bullion. A company was formed, the Kauri Freehold Gold Estates, and a share issue floated in 1896. In the Opitonui valley a boom town sprang up, including hotels, stores and a school. But the rock-to-bullion ratio proved uneconomic, a bust followed, and Opitonui became a ghost town, then vanished altogether.
All these events had been fully reported in the newspapers of the day, such as The Daily Southern Cross. The website http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz proved a tremendous help. There were also illuminating photographs in the Auckland Weekly News.
In the Kiwi way, the news that a book on Whangapoua was being written soon spread. People rang to tell me their stories, called in to talk, emailed or sent photos.
Chapter headings for the book now suggested themselves: pre-European tribal life, kauri deforestation and milling, the mining boom and bust, pioneer farming, "rehab" farming, reafforestation, coastal subdivision. Writing a local history, I came to realise, is like working on a very large jigsaw puzzle. Key pieces were missing but had to be found to complete the picture.
Several people had recollections of Whangapoua's most extraordinary resident, Alberta McLean (1886-1964). She was the daughter of an upper-class English couple, Henrietta and Charles Ridley, who had been the controller of the English royal household. Alberta drove an ambulance in World War I, married and divorced twice, and in 1929 emigrated to Whangapoua. There she bought land, built a 13-bedroom homestead, farmed sheep and bred Siamese cats and polo ponies. Childless, she left her estate to various charities, including the SPCA.
A founding family of Whangapoua were the Denizes, whose story runs right through the district's narrative. "Punga" Denize was a pioneer farmer and it was pastoralist Bert Denize who allowed people to camp on his land by the Te Punga stream from the 1950s through to the 1980s.
Bert's son Rob and his wife Wendy, who taught at the local school at Te Rerenga for longer than anyone else, today live in the homestead that Alberta McLean had built. It's virtually the same as it was in the 1930s with its frontage deck, grand dining room and stone wall surround. And in the hall, along with Denize family photos, is a portrait of the formidable Alberta, still looking as if she owns the place.
Whangapoua: Harbour of the Shellfish by Graeme Lay, is published by the Whangapoua History Project Group (256pp, $70) By GRAEME LAY - Sunday Star Times
Last updated 05:00 30/08/2009
Are you local?: When it came to stories, Whangapoua turned out to be a figurative and literal gold mine.
Relevant offers
Saturday, August 29, 2009
An Obituary- London Times
oday we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.
No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies
(adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.
Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school
for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do
in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to
administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and
wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment
than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own
home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot.
She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death,
by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on.
If not, join the majority and do nothing
No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies
(adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.
Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school
for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do
in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to
administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and
wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment
than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own
home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot.
She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death,
by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on.
If not, join the majority and do nothing
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Locals band together to save church
By Simon Wong ⋅ May 22, 2009 ⋅
It is truly a community affair as local groups in Mt Eden join forces to upgrade a local icon.
The Mt Eden Village Society Centre, the Methodist Church and the Eden-Albert Community Board are working together to restore the historic Mt Eden Rd church and hall into a community facility.
The hall was destined to be redesigned as a commercial site for shops and had resource consent, but strong local opposition stopped the plan going ahead.
Community board member Virginia Chong says the hall is the only community facility from Sandringham Rd to Gillies Ave in Epsom.
“We were not prepared to sit and let it disappear.”
Village society centre member Penny Hansen says the change of plan is a win for both the community and the church.
“It was a victory in finding a way to work together. All the problems are in the past now.”
The annex that joined the church with the hall, which was used as a Sunday school, was destroyed by a fire several years ago.
The project will reconnect the church with the hall and will provide a new kitchen and toilet facilities. The exterior will also be repainted and the interior refurbished.
It is projected to cost around $1.5 million.
Some funding has been guaranteed, but the three parties, which have formed a trust, are still seeking additional funding.
Dr Bill Peddie, who looks after the Mt Eden church, says the partnership between the three parties is unique.
“Usually churches do their own thing and offer their place for hire. The trust will lease the premises from the church which has ownership of the land and the building.”
Dr Peddie says the church, which was established in 1899, has lost some of its character by doing things “on the cheap”.
“Its historic value will be increased by tidying up the premises.”
Chong says she is keen to get the project done before the proposed super city structure takes effect.
“We’ve waited a long time for this. It’s been about six years in the making.”
During the construction period, which is hoped to begin next January and finish in August 2010, Dr Peddie says the church will “either find some way of keeping the hall open, or shift to another church”.
Dr Peddie says the community has been extremely supportive of the project.
“There is enough goodwill in the community to ensure we won’t lose sight of what we’re aiming to do.”
Hansen says the hall is already used by several local groups, but hopes the new development will encourage more people to use the facility.
“The motto for Mt Eden is ‘The place where people meet’ and the church will be the heart of the place.”
It is truly a community affair as local groups in Mt Eden join forces to upgrade a local icon.
The Mt Eden Village Society Centre, the Methodist Church and the Eden-Albert Community Board are working together to restore the historic Mt Eden Rd church and hall into a community facility.
The hall was destined to be redesigned as a commercial site for shops and had resource consent, but strong local opposition stopped the plan going ahead.
Community board member Virginia Chong says the hall is the only community facility from Sandringham Rd to Gillies Ave in Epsom.
“We were not prepared to sit and let it disappear.”
Village society centre member Penny Hansen says the change of plan is a win for both the community and the church.
“It was a victory in finding a way to work together. All the problems are in the past now.”
The annex that joined the church with the hall, which was used as a Sunday school, was destroyed by a fire several years ago.
The project will reconnect the church with the hall and will provide a new kitchen and toilet facilities. The exterior will also be repainted and the interior refurbished.
It is projected to cost around $1.5 million.
Some funding has been guaranteed, but the three parties, which have formed a trust, are still seeking additional funding.
Dr Bill Peddie, who looks after the Mt Eden church, says the partnership between the three parties is unique.
“Usually churches do their own thing and offer their place for hire. The trust will lease the premises from the church which has ownership of the land and the building.”
Dr Peddie says the church, which was established in 1899, has lost some of its character by doing things “on the cheap”.
“Its historic value will be increased by tidying up the premises.”
Chong says she is keen to get the project done before the proposed super city structure takes effect.
“We’ve waited a long time for this. It’s been about six years in the making.”
During the construction period, which is hoped to begin next January and finish in August 2010, Dr Peddie says the church will “either find some way of keeping the hall open, or shift to another church”.
Dr Peddie says the community has been extremely supportive of the project.
“There is enough goodwill in the community to ensure we won’t lose sight of what we’re aiming to do.”
Hansen says the hall is already used by several local groups, but hopes the new development will encourage more people to use the facility.
“The motto for Mt Eden is ‘The place where people meet’ and the church will be the heart of the place.”
Sunday, July 19, 2009
There's gnome business like a good old business
Something there is that does not love a gnome, and that something lurks in Otaki.
I was sad to see, last week, the image of an 80-year-old chap clutching the last remains of his precious gnome collection and factory, after an arson attack there. It was a soot-blackened gnome fellow, this survivor, moulded with a container suitable for a small cactus, and the chap looked for all the world, bearded as he was, like the model for the quirky product he held. Such things had earned him a modest living in his old age. It was a mean trick that was played on him, and whoever did it is a scoundrel.
Arthur Ray had devoted the past decade to making gnomes and other garden ornaments, and lost his entire collection of 450 rubber and fibreglass moulds in the deliberately lit fire. As local policeman Stephen Yates observed, "It has totally destroyed an elderly man's livelihood, cottage industry and passion." And a little joy has gone out of the world.
I am an admirer of the gnome in all his garden guises. A gnome lends a garden a touch of levity; he greets passers-by as a friend. I especially enjoy those gardens where the gnome lives with an entire family of spotted toads, flamingoes, toadstools, bird baths and lurking plaster cats. There may be little room for plants, but there is a whole cheerful world to enjoy, entirely and blissfully artificial. No weeding needs to be done.
The gnome is the cornerstone of much suburban pride. He has suffered in recent years from knives in the back, and from seemingly being run over by trucks - but he endures. With him thrive the metal butterfly stuck to the side of the house, the whirring legs of Roadrunner nailed to a post, and large artificial sunflowers with smiles painted on their faces. It is a sourpuss indeed who cannot raise a smile at such nonsense.
I would rather see the works of Arthur Ray lurking in a backyard than the dismal "native" gardens that puritans make, all lack of colour and all politics. The Great New Zealand God did not create suburban back yards in the Great Beginning. They are in themselves unnatural, and do not become more beauteous because they hold clumps of dull flax and a withered titoki bush, along with a large dog relieving himself liberally therein, and barking between-times out of boredom and ill temper. How much more harmless is the child's wonderland of story book characters that men like Arthur Ray produce, for the pleasure of children and old ladies. And it is tactfully silent.
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A pox upon the arsonist, and a pox, too, on the dismal world of business where yet another New Zealand brand hit the asphalt last week. I am sorry to see the Canterbury brand go the way of so many others, all of which gave not only work, but a sense of cautious national pride.
I do not need a gnome in my garden, or - god forbid - a pair of track pants with stripes down the side to understand the kind of loss this is. It was a bad thing when the All Blacks abandoned the brand, and maybe things have been downhill for it since then.
We who scavenge in junk shops find there a whole world of good things that were once made in New Zealand, too, but which long ago went to the wall in the interest of some greater purpose that quite eludes me. Think of Crown Lynn pottery, now so collectable, for a start. It was once a household mainstay, and a cup of tea in a chunky NZR Crown Lynn cup was a proper kiwi experience, a rite of passage: you had to be quite grown up to handle the thing with one arm.
And what about the woolen mills we once had, producing warm blankets and knitwear that dressed generations of us well? You find those blankets now and wonder what on earth happened, what with this being a country of sheep. I love their woven labels: Maori chieftains, Pania of the Reef, tikis, images of factories, Robins (why?) and the memories of being tucked up on lumpy kapok mattresses under layers of their warmth. Are duvets really the same? And then there were the tartan picnic rugs we made that traveled in the backs of many cars, and covered old sofas when the upholstery gave way. You can't have a decent picnic on a duvet, but you could on a proper tartan blanket, pure wool, with a fringed edge.
Nowadays you can buy a synthetic imitation of those blankets, cold and light, and not the same, and we have no skilled workers holding down steady jobs in mills that kept communities alive. This, we are told, is a fine thing. It is better to have idle hands here, and cheap rubbish to buy from overseas. So we are left with backyard gnome factories. And somebody burns them down. Rosemary McLeod - Sunday Star Times
Last updated 05:00 19/07/2009
I was sad to see, last week, the image of an 80-year-old chap clutching the last remains of his precious gnome collection and factory, after an arson attack there. It was a soot-blackened gnome fellow, this survivor, moulded with a container suitable for a small cactus, and the chap looked for all the world, bearded as he was, like the model for the quirky product he held. Such things had earned him a modest living in his old age. It was a mean trick that was played on him, and whoever did it is a scoundrel.
Arthur Ray had devoted the past decade to making gnomes and other garden ornaments, and lost his entire collection of 450 rubber and fibreglass moulds in the deliberately lit fire. As local policeman Stephen Yates observed, "It has totally destroyed an elderly man's livelihood, cottage industry and passion." And a little joy has gone out of the world.
I am an admirer of the gnome in all his garden guises. A gnome lends a garden a touch of levity; he greets passers-by as a friend. I especially enjoy those gardens where the gnome lives with an entire family of spotted toads, flamingoes, toadstools, bird baths and lurking plaster cats. There may be little room for plants, but there is a whole cheerful world to enjoy, entirely and blissfully artificial. No weeding needs to be done.
The gnome is the cornerstone of much suburban pride. He has suffered in recent years from knives in the back, and from seemingly being run over by trucks - but he endures. With him thrive the metal butterfly stuck to the side of the house, the whirring legs of Roadrunner nailed to a post, and large artificial sunflowers with smiles painted on their faces. It is a sourpuss indeed who cannot raise a smile at such nonsense.
I would rather see the works of Arthur Ray lurking in a backyard than the dismal "native" gardens that puritans make, all lack of colour and all politics. The Great New Zealand God did not create suburban back yards in the Great Beginning. They are in themselves unnatural, and do not become more beauteous because they hold clumps of dull flax and a withered titoki bush, along with a large dog relieving himself liberally therein, and barking between-times out of boredom and ill temper. How much more harmless is the child's wonderland of story book characters that men like Arthur Ray produce, for the pleasure of children and old ladies. And it is tactfully silent.
Ad Feedback
A pox upon the arsonist, and a pox, too, on the dismal world of business where yet another New Zealand brand hit the asphalt last week. I am sorry to see the Canterbury brand go the way of so many others, all of which gave not only work, but a sense of cautious national pride.
I do not need a gnome in my garden, or - god forbid - a pair of track pants with stripes down the side to understand the kind of loss this is. It was a bad thing when the All Blacks abandoned the brand, and maybe things have been downhill for it since then.
We who scavenge in junk shops find there a whole world of good things that were once made in New Zealand, too, but which long ago went to the wall in the interest of some greater purpose that quite eludes me. Think of Crown Lynn pottery, now so collectable, for a start. It was once a household mainstay, and a cup of tea in a chunky NZR Crown Lynn cup was a proper kiwi experience, a rite of passage: you had to be quite grown up to handle the thing with one arm.
And what about the woolen mills we once had, producing warm blankets and knitwear that dressed generations of us well? You find those blankets now and wonder what on earth happened, what with this being a country of sheep. I love their woven labels: Maori chieftains, Pania of the Reef, tikis, images of factories, Robins (why?) and the memories of being tucked up on lumpy kapok mattresses under layers of their warmth. Are duvets really the same? And then there were the tartan picnic rugs we made that traveled in the backs of many cars, and covered old sofas when the upholstery gave way. You can't have a decent picnic on a duvet, but you could on a proper tartan blanket, pure wool, with a fringed edge.
Nowadays you can buy a synthetic imitation of those blankets, cold and light, and not the same, and we have no skilled workers holding down steady jobs in mills that kept communities alive. This, we are told, is a fine thing. It is better to have idle hands here, and cheap rubbish to buy from overseas. So we are left with backyard gnome factories. And somebody burns them down. Rosemary McLeod - Sunday Star Times
Last updated 05:00 19/07/2009
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