NZ Memories issue 130

APPET I SER

The Wairau

Barry Holdaway has a keen interest in the Wairau; his grandfather James Holdaway drove bullock drays on the Wairau Boulder Bank in 1857. The Nelson / Marlborough regional section includes an excellent article by this author.

Illustrations from top: an 1845 watercolour of the Wairau Plain by William Fox from the Hocken Pictorial Collections (12,900-a3622); an 1853 lithograph by Frederick Mackie looking north toward the Wairau River mouth (Boulder Bank Village is to the right with the Wairau River mouth on the left); and the author’s 2014 photograph of the tip of Boulder Bank.

Mackie, Frederick [1812-1893] Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK2092/27, Libraries Australia I. D. 476755

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E D I TORIAL

Dear Readers, The beginning of 2018 marks a milestone for me in the role of editor. Ron Cooke launched the first issue of New Zealand Memories in 1995, the baton was then passed to Roger Hamlin and, finally, to myself in January 1998.

Over the years we have published some remarkable material from even more remarkable people; authors with heartwarming accounts of their lives and that of their ancestors, of men and women who overcame challenges and were seemingly undaunted by insurmountable difficulties. A hardy lot indeed. It is sad to think that many of these contributors have now passed on but their stories are forever recorded amongst the 130 issues published to date. I am left with fond memories of working towards publication with each contributor.

In my early years as editor I pondered the question often still asked of me, “Will the magazine ever run out of material?

After twenty years I can answer to the negative with absolute certainty. There are more articles arriving on my desk than ever before. And hasn’t technology advanced! In 1998 I would borrow armfuls of reference books from the libraries, my correspondence was all done by letter and museum photographic orders for publication in the magazine were actual photographs that arrived in the post.

It is also a time for farewells as Anne Coath, the friendly Friday voice, leaves after eighteen years. Anne’s valuable contribution and pleasant manner will be sorely missed in the office.

Looking forward, in this first edition for 2018 we are proud to include war veteran James Milburn who was called up in the Air Force in 1942 to serve bravely in the Pacific. Roger Strong brings an account of another war hero whose story does not end as happily.

Immigration is always a popular subject and the leading article by Peter Farrell follows his application and subsequent arrival in National Park. I wonder how many of our readers visited New Zealand House in London for acceptance under the Assisted Immigrant Scheme? Taking us back to a century earlier Barry Holdaway offers a long-awaited article on the Wairau, Alec Saunders explores his Scottish roots and superb Taranaki images accompany the story of the most extraordinary Mr A.W. Reid. And there’s plenty more hiding between the main features.

Enjoy this latest issue as I embark on another twenty years…

Wendy Rhodes, Editor

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C ON T EN TS

Editor Wendy Rhodes Photographic Scanning Anne Coath Administration David Rhodes Distributed by Gordon and Gotch Subscriptions & Enquiries Phone tollfree: 0800 696 366 Mail: Freepost 91641, PO Box 17288, Green Lane, Auckland 1546 email: admin@memories.co.nz www.memories.co.nz Annual Subscription $79 for 6 issues (Price includes postage within NZ) For overseas postage: Add $49.00 for Australia Add $69.00 for Rest of the World Contributors Air Force Museum Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ Aotea Utonganui Museum of South Taranaki Arnold, Marjorie Ann Bellini, B Cameron, Dave Collingwood Museum Collins, Bruce E. Farrell, Peter Grant, Jeanette Hocken Pictorial Collections Holdaway, Barry Milburn, James Moor, Christopher Motueka & Districts Historical Association Nelson Provincial Museum Puke Ariki Risk, Bill Robertson, M.J. Saunders, Alec Scott, Jenny Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland City Libraries Smith, Barrie South Canterbury Museum Stratford District Council Strong, Roger Turley, Alan Walter, David Wood. Val

Contents Assisted Immigration: National Park, 1965.

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Peter Farrell signed up with the Department of Justice for two years.

The Silver Fern

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Alan Turley follows the evolution of a New Zealand icon.

Forgotten Ships

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“Vessels lost at sea were not a rare occurrence,” writes Bruce E. Collins.

From Thames to the Trenches

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We Wore Hats Everywhere

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Bookstore in a Time Warp

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Alfred Saunders at Cheviot

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From the Regions: Nelson / Marlborough

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Centrefold: Parking Lot or Beach?

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AWR: Inventor, Entrepreneur and Farmer

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Driving the Blackjack Road

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Off to the Pacific

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The 1950 British Empire Games

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From the Regions: Taranaki

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Roger Strong pays tribute to Lieutenant Albert Gordon RFC. Val Wood trained as a milliner in the 1950s.

Wellingtonians will relate to Christopher Moor’s article.

Alec Saunders explores his Scottish roots.

Written by David Walter, researched by Barrie Smith.

Camping in Whitianga with Jeanette Grant.

A recollection of the Second World War by James Milburn.

A glimpse of the games from Sport’s Correspondent Dave Cameron.

Mailbox

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Keeping Chooks

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Opinions: Expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of New Zealand Memories.

Index and Genealogy List

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Accuracy: While every effort has been made to present accurate information, the publishers take no responsibility for errors or omissions.

Editor’s Choice: Phar Lap

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Bill Risk discusses his ancestors’ egg supply.

Copyright: All material as presented in New Zealand Memories is copyright to the publishers or the individual contributors as credited.

ISSN 1173-4159 February/March 2018

Cover image: Alexander Walker Reid in his Taranaki workshop. Article on page 38.

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Assisted Immigration: Arriving in National Park, 1965

By Peter Farrell Introduction

Approximately 4,300 assisted immigrants travelled to New Zealand from the United Kingdom in 1965 under the Assisted Immigration Scheme.1 This proved to be one of the highest annual intakes of assisted immigrants during the post war era. Most immigrants arrived by ship. New Zealand House in London was the main centre for interviewing potential immigrants from southern England.

Peter Farrell had negotiated a job directly with the Department of Justice who offered him work and a house at Waikune Prison in National Park. The Immigration Official at New Zealand House warned him that National Park was at the “backend of nowhere”. Once accepted for the scheme, Peter was to be flown out ahead of his wife and newly born child who would join him four months later. He was never entirely sure why he was needed so urgently, but was happy to accept the offer.

Auckland to London air ticket. The New Zealand Government paid almost the entire fare for Peter’s family; this was subject to him agreeing to remain with the same employer for two years.

1. Source: The New Zealand Official Yearbook

New Zealand House, London photographed in about 1964.

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STORY

Departure

It was dark at 4.00 in the afternoon when I left for Heathrow Airport. On the corners of the bus windows sleet settled into ice as I peered out for my last look at England. It would be a few months before I would see Brenda and the baby again; leaving them even for such a short time had left me empty and apprehensive. It had been a wise decision to forego airport farewells as it gave me some time to compose myself for what was ahead. The overheated terminal was bright with the lights of Christmas. A choir of young children in school uniform was assembled around a Christmas tree, singing carols. I felt like a visitor from another world, just watching but not feeling part of anything going on around me. I had never been to an air terminal before and this was quite different to the Maidstone bus station. I scanned the exotic places on the departure board and found the BOAC flight BA722 to Auckland. I prepared for the thirty-six hour journey with stops at Rome, Bombay and Darwin.

Too late for second thoughts now.

Arrival

It was hot and sticky at Auckland Airport. Christmas belonged in the cold and dark… not in that place, where sharp summer light presided over barbecues and cicadas rather than snowmen and chestnuts. Doris Day and Dean Martin Christmas songs were being played through the public address system.

“G’day. Mr Farrell is it? Got your passport?” The voice was friendly enough, if a little brisk.

It wasn’t the welcome I expected but the New Zealand Immigration Service had to protect the government’s investment. I had handed over my mint condition United Kingdom passport with its lonely sole entry and it was stamped Permitted to enter: 20 December 1965 when I passed through New Zealand Customs. The young man from immigration looked over the document and casually slipped it inside his briefcase. He had a ruddy outdoors face, cropped blond hair and blank, disinterested eyes. In his grey shorts and long woollen socks, there was an air of a truculent sixth former about him.

“Ta. You’ll get this back after two years. Here’s your receipt, your bus chit to the railway station and your ticket for the train to National Park. That’s the nearest station for Waikune Prison. I hate these weekend pick-ups,” he

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STO RY

said, using immigration jargon that was quite beyond me.

“A joker doesn’t get a weekend to himself. Still, at least you speak English.” He smiled happily at his own joke.

At that point, I had not uttered a word. I was about to become very good at keeping my own counsel.

“You can catch the bus out the front. Takes about an hour. Then it’s a short walk to the railway station. Train doesn’t leave til 7.00 so you’ve got plenty of time.” His face softened. “Best of luck. You’ll need it where you’re going.”

“So I’ve been told,” I replied lightly as I gathered my bags and moved off to find the bus. The air outside the terminal was clear and the sun hot against my face, pale from the northern winter.

Auckland Railway Station was cavernous and much quieter than I expected. The departure of the train to Wellington seemed to be the highlight of the day as passengers began to gather around the far platform.

Their excited chatter echoed across empty platforms.

I walked past red, weather-beaten railway carriages looking for my seat. The train was crowded. There was a smell of fish and chips and beer as families settled in for the long overnight journey to Wellington. My last meal had been served up by BOAC somewhere over Darwin and there did not seem to be a dining car - not that I had any money for extras anyway! The setting sun played through the windows as we rattled towards Hamilton. Somewhere a guitar was being gently strummed, a Christmas carol that was familiar, but incongruous to me in those surroundings.

“Next stop National Park,” the guard announced while moving through darkened carriages, torch in hand. Five hours after we had left Auckland, the train heaved and shook as we pulled out of Taumarunui.

Anxious that I would miss the stop, I lifted my cases down from the rack, stumbled over snoring bodies and struggled towards the exit door. Waiting, waiting, waiting… it took the train a further hour to labour up the Raurimu spiral towards the central plateau of mountains. I wiped the steamy window, my forehead against the cold glass, peering into the night. Through the darkness there were glimpses of dark green foliage, glistening wet. Lowering the window, I caught what would become the familiar sweet, dank, smell of the New Zealand bush.

I thought of Brenda and the baby in London. I was glad they weren’t with me.

Steam and smoke poured from the black engine when it halted at National Park Station. I jumped down onto the empty platform, shining and slippery with the early morning dew. I had been rehearsing this

moment in my head ever since I left Heathrow. The train clattered off into the darkness, a railway crossing bell rung out in the distance, and then there was a deep, empty silence. The station buildings were in darkness, save for a flickering light bulb illuminating what looked like a ticket office. The office was empty. I pushed open the exit door and looked around outside confident that there would be some transport for me.

Etched black against the sky was the unmistakable shape of a volcano. I was a Lilliputian confronted by Gulliver’s world. Not a soul in sight. I shivered against the cold mountain air, and drew my new Marks and Spencer duffel coat around me; my sense of arrival and alienation was complete.

Employment

There was a black wind-up phone in the ticket office.

The operator chattered away as she connected me to the prison number, I got the impression she had not had a call to deal with all night. There was an unfamiliar lilt to her voice. Could it be Mãori? She didn’t charge me for the call.

“Waikune Prison.” The owner of the voice was obviously none too pleased at being awakened at that time in the morning.

“It’s Peter Farrell.” I thought that a laconic and easygoing image should find acceptance.

“Who?” “Peter Farrell.”

“There’s no Peter Farrell here, mate.”

“No. Sorry. I’m Peter Farrell. I’m starting work there tomorrow.” I had done my research and knew the first rule for being accepted – always avoid any reference to England and never, ever, make unfavourable comparisons.

“You the new Pom?” “Yes. I’ve just come off the Auckland train. There doesn’t seem to be any transport up here. The station’s all closed up.”

“Not surprised. Old Ron usually gets pissed on Fridays.” Ron must be the stationmaster, I thought.

“It’s not bloody Piccadilly Circus, mate. I suppose you’re expecting a taxi.” The edge had returned to his voice.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ll just bunk down here till morning,” I said, eyeing the old wooden station bench doubtfully.

“No need to do that. They left the camp van up there somewhere for you. The keys will be in it. Just go up to the main road and turn right. It’ll take you about half an hour.” He seemed to have relaxed a bit.

“I don’t have a New Zealand licence.” I didn’t like to

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admit that I had no driving licence of any sort, having failed my test three times.

He reverted to his earlier dismissive tone. “I sometimes wonder how you b……. ever won the war. Just find the bloody van and drive it. We’ll sort out the paperwork later.”

The Bedford van was some distance from the station. New Zealand Government was painted in white on the grey bodywork and the door was pitted with rust. I loaded on my bags and nervously climbed into the cab.

I found the ignition and the van coughed into life. Co-ordinating the clutch and gears had always been my downfall and I stalled the motor twice before pulling away in a spray of gravel. By the time I got to the main road I managed to discern which of the switches turned the lights on. Unencumbered by any other traffic, I found my confidence growing. The headlights picked out a narrow, unsurfaced road and the occasional wisp of foliage reached out of the bush and trailed against the windscreen. By the time I swung into the prison camp, I felt I could easily be mistaken for an experienced driver.

Waikune was a low security prison. Except for the floodlit compound, the prison buildings had the appearance of a large, unkempt motel rather than a prison. Prisoners were evidently locked down and checked at night, but there were no walls or fences in evidence. The authorities obviously felt the inhospitable mountain bush surrounding the prison for miles around was containment enough.

I saw smoke spiralling up from the wooden houses dotted around the perimeter of the compound and a few grey trucks were parked carelessly. I followed the lights to what looked like a reception area and jumped down

“The single men’s quarters looked like a modern extension of the prison itself.”

Waikune Prison was a forestry camp for mainly short term inmates, or those at the end of longer sentences.

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F E AT U RE

Bookstore in a Time Warp Christopher Moor

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Douglas Winder Collection, Ref DW-2573-F.

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Siblings Vera (left) and Harold Osborn at the entrance to Ferguson and Osborn Ltd in July 1979.

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Ref: EP-1979-2725, Dominion Post Collection.

“T Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Douglas Winder Collection, Ref DW-2573-F.

alk about being behind the times” was said by many customers of the former Ferguson and Osborn bookshop in Wellington’s Lambton Quay. The bookstore entrenched in a pre-WW2-look closed on 31 July 1979. Three weeks later Whitcoulls sold off the remaining stock in a clearance advertised as the ‘book sale of the century’.

What came out of that sale was more than just books.

The story of Ferguson and Osborn began in 1912 when accountant Walter Osborn went into partnership with Alexander Ferguson in a business trading as Ferguson & Hicks. Walter Osborn bought out Ferguson in 1931, two years before his death in 1933.

When the shop closed down it was the only original bookshop still trading in Lambton Quay. The business had originated as Brown, Thompson and Company more than a century before.

Siblings Harold (70) and Vera Osborn (71), the son and daughter of the late Walter, ran the bookshop while their brother Reginald (73) looked after the printing side of the business. The print factory operated from above the shop. At the time of the shop’s closure, Harold, a qualified accountant, had worked in the business for 52 years, and Vera since World War Two, when she’d come in to “help out”. Working at the shop was the only job Vera had. Some customers may remember her as a quietly spoken, efficient woman who, like her brother, gave the impression that being served by an Osborn was a privilege.

Rowan Gibbs went into the store often from the 1960s. He was interested in ancient history and found

a book on the archaeology of Troy on a topmost shelf, so he moved a nearby ladder closer to bring the book down for inspection. The manager soon arrived to ask him what he was doing. Rowan handed him the book and he gave off the appearance of being reluctant to sell it to him, banging the book on the counter to remove the accumulated dust. (Harold and Vera cleaned the store themselves because they did not trust cleaners.)

Some have memories of an overhead change carrier taking the money to the office with the docket for change, the carbon copy of the transaction impaled on a spike on the counter. The parcel was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string while customers waited for their change. Rolls of string hanging behind the counter now seem to be the most common memory of the shop.

Lorraine Williams was a customer with a regular magazine order in the 1960s. She went to the pigeon holes by the stairs on the left side of the shop and took her magazine to the counter to pay. Her magazine was rolled in a paper wrapper with her name and the amount she had to pay written on it.

Donald Davie discovered Ferguson and Osborn in early March 1971 while attending Victoria University, and was amazed at its atmosphere. His first impression was that he was in a second hand shop.” It was like returning to a 1930s shop – dark floors and similar coloured shelves around the walls.” He called the shop “dark and mysterious” and likened it to being in a warehouse. Harold and Vera Osborn were described by him as serious and conservative, and looking as if they had been there for decades. “There seemed

Opposite page: Detail from a circa 1966 image showing the building occupied by Ferguson and Osborn Ltd.

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Parking Lot or Beach?

This superb photograph from South Canterbury Museum collection looks south over Caroline Bay and the harbour from Virtue Avenue viaduct. The date is estimated at “circa 1940�. Perhaps car enthusiasts amongst our readers could gauge a more precise date by the models of the parked cars. South Canterbury Museum Ref: 952/18 37

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Driving the Blackjack Road

By Jeanette Grant

D

uring the 1940s and ’50s we used to go camping in the summer school holidays. The statutory holidays were only two weeks long – so you made the most of them. After a couple of years with the unreliable weather around Christmas, my parents decided that the last weeks in January were a much better bet and we had the actual going away part down to a fine art.

We had a trailer and in those days the speed-limit when towing was only 40mph which was frustrating for the driver and a real nuisance to everyone else on the road. We used to have everything packed the night before, go to bed early with the alarm clock set for 3 a.m. and on the road an hour later. If we were going to our favourite spot, Whitianga, that meant it took us two hours to Thames, half an hour up the lovely winding coast road to Tapu, an hour to drive over the old Tapu Hill road and then another half an hour from Coroglen would see us arriving at Mrs Ayres farm (later the Buffalo Beach Camp) at 8 a.m. By 9 a.m we would have erected the tent, had a second breakfast and were on the beach for the day.

For the benefit of later generations, I must add a little detail here. Firstly, the old Tapu Hill road is still there and the central section is not much different. It is a narrow, winding, unsealed road with steep drops to treetops below - badly rutted and not the kind of road where you want to meet oncoming traffic. It was in fact, the kind of road where it was advisable to blow your horn on the tighter bends! Now blowing the horn, in New Zealand at least, is not an everyday occurrence. Those were the days of bench seats and no safety belts. Dad had a horn fitted to the Vanguard which blew three separate notes; enough to play a tune, so my sister Barbie and I used to take turns sitting in front and pressing the buttons to play ‘Row, row, row your boat’ and other memorable phrases.

And as for overtaking? Forget it. If you were unlucky enough to get behind another vehicle, the safe and sensible, if frustrating, thing to do, should have been to stop and let the dust settle before you followed it. Even with all the windows tight shut, the dust always managed to get in.

However, I have once encountered an even worse road. The Blackjack Road, north of Whitianga near Kuaotunu.

“Those were the days of bench seats and no safety belts.”

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It was probably about 1956 or so. Dad was a photographer in an advertising firm and this particular summer a couple of the younger staff were also camping there, probably on Dad’s recommendation. I think it was one of the office girls with her husband and one of the artists with his wife and South African brother-in-law. I remember his name was Dirk and he drove a bulky American car – all chrome and fins.

One day we all got into our cars and drove north along the coast looking for a seagulls’ nesting place we had been told about. It was supposed to be near Kuaotunu and when we reached that little beach we asked for directions – and were sent along the Blackjack Road.

Well. Like the Tapu Hill it was narrow and unsealed. Moreover it rose up quite steeply and before we knew what was happening we were perched precariously on the face of a cliff with a vertical hillside above us and what seemed like a straight drop down to rocks and the sea on our left. There was no guard rail!

Once started on it we were committed. There was no way to turn round or turn back. And it soon became obvious that even just turning was not that simple. A couple of the corners were so tight that Dirk in his clumsy American barge could not just steer round them but had to stop and make a virtual three point turn. On his own I might add, as his passengers lost their nerve and got out.

I don’t think the road was even a mile long and we came down the hill to one of the most beautiful unspoiled little beaches I have ever seen. It is rare these days to be able to walk on a beach and pick up unbroken shells, but that beach was covered in them.

We stopped there while the drivers braced themselves for the return trip.

About five years later I had a friend on an Auckland University’s archaeology department dig at Sarah’s Gully at the absolute end of that road. She said that the farmer who owned most of the land had become accustomed to driving tourist’s cars back when they ventured along it by mistake and did not have the nerve to do it a second time. I can quite believe it!

Oh. And as for the seagulls? It turned out that they nested on a cluster of rocks – smaller than the lion at Piha – right in the middle of the beach at Kuaotuna - but there weren’t any there that year. n The Vanguard (owned between 1951-56) was used on the Blackjack Road.

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E D I TOR’ S

CHOICE

Phar Lap atTrentham

Phar Lap with attendant Tommy Woodcock at Trentham Racecourse in 1931. Photographed by Charles P. S. Boyer shortly prior to the racehorse’s departure on a trip to North America. Standing nearby are (from left) Rt Hon Joseph Gordon Coates, Oswald Stephen Watkins, David Jones, Brigadier James Hargest and Adam Hamilton.

On 24 March 1932, Phar Lap (the Thai word for ‘lightning’) won Mexico’s Agua Caliente Handicap and the racing event sparked numerous invitations for the successful newcomer to race at major meetings. Sadly, only twelve days after his win, Phar Lap died on 5 April 1932; rumours of poisoning were rife. These suspicions were never confirmed. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Making New Zealand Centennial collection. Ref: MNZ-2372-1/2-F.

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