NZ Memories Issue 135

A PPET I SER

An Engineer’s Nightmare?

Spectacular photographs of the Arapuni Power Station and Dam construction, contributed by June Peka, introduce the Waikato Regional section on page 45.

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E D I TO R I A L

Dear Readers, With the festive season almost upon us, what could be more appropriate than a story from Max Cryer entitled Christmas Memories as our leading feature. The origins of a selection of much-loved carols make interesting reading - who would have guessed that Silent Night came about because of a mouse in a church organ?

A benevolent spirit was very evident in the heart of Rutherford Waddell as he strove to make a difference to the lives of Dunedin women in his attempts to stop exploitation in the form of ‘sweating’. Ian Dougherty gives an account of Waddell’s crusade to improve the lot of these women (and eventually throughout New Zealand) in the late nineteenth century.

In the 1940s Jeanette Grant camped in the summer holidays, an affordable break in those cash-strapped years, while the Chan Family landed on a TEAL flying boat on the Waitemata Harbour to make a new beginning on a shoestring budget. Car restoration was the order of the day for John Stackhouse whose account of the Morris 8 is published alongside this heartening collection of genuine stories.

In this modern age of technology, we are bombarded with data… but this wasn’t always the case. Early settlers eagerly awaited the newspapers and, as author Ian. F. Grant points out in his intriguing article, short of personal conversations, posters and handbills, these papers were the sole source of news and information.

How the year has flown. It seems no time at all since I sent out my last Christmas message. As always, I wish readers a very blessed Christmas and the joy of family, friends, good health and plenty of laughter as we turn the page and welcome in 2019.

Wendy Rhodes, Editor

Memories are forever Issue 135 December / January 2019

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Early Days of New Zealand Newspapers

Canterbury’s Horace the Morris 8

Dunedin: Crusade Against ‘Sweated Labour’

From Hong Kong to Auckland, 1948

Christmas Festivities of Bygone Years

New Zealand’s Flax Industry

Regions: Waikato and Whanganui / Manawatu

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CONT EN TS

Editor Wendy Rhodes Graphic Design Icon Design 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 six issues (Price includes postage within NZ) For overseas postage: Add $59.00 for Australia Add $79.00 for Rest of the World Contributors Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Barrack, Bruce Bellini Family Collection Cambridge Museum Cheung, Grace Cole, H. Cryer, Max Cummings Family Collection Dougherty, Ian Doyle, Judith Dunlop, Judith Grant, Ian F. Grant, Jeanette History House, Greymouth Hocken Collections Hunt, Tony Mangere Historical Society McKinnon, John Palmerston North Libraries and Community Services Peka, June Pickmere, Alan Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland City Libraries Sneddon, M Stackhouse, Horace Stewart, Graham Tait, Gordon Taylor, Robert Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom Tiller, E Tompkins, A.L. Wairarapa Archive Whitelock, John

Contents Christmas Memories

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Max Cryer documents bygone festivities and carols.

New Arrivals

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Grace Cheung’s story; from Hong Kong to Auckland in 1948.

The Early Days of New Zealand Newspapers

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From the Regions: Whanganui / Manawatu

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Horace… A Car Full of Character

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Sapper 21437

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Centrefold: A Reason to Celebrate

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Camping with Cousins

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From the Regions: Waikato

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Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! In Poverty, Hunger, and Dirt

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Reader’s Response: Mutiny in the Ranks

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Childhood Chuckles

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Ian F. Grant explores the history of print media.

John Stackhouse pens the story of the family’s much-loved Morris 8.

Eileen Tiller shares a comic postcard from a World War I tunneller.

Contributed by History House, Greymouth.

Jeanette Grant recalls tenting during the Christmas holidays.

Ian Dougherty discusses ‘sweated labour’.

Judith Dunlop relates to Geoff Lealand’s Issue 133 article.

A poem from Robert Taylor.

Mailbox

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Parachute Santa Crashes in Auckland

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Index and Genealogy List

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Editor’s Choice: Dog-tired

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

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

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

ISSN 1173-4159 December/January 2019

Cover image: Cover image supplied by Robert Taylor: Herding sheep over Auckland’s Mangere Bridge in 1900. Refer to Robert’s poem on page 62.

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F E AT UR E

Christmas Memories Max Cryer During the 1800s, conditions in Britain at some social levels were desperately difficult. Much ‘common land’ had become ‘enclosed’ and left many people with no work and the gradual introduction of machinery had lowered the number of people required for some major tasks. Much of what had once been done in cottages, such as weaving, was beginning to emerge from textile factories. In Ireland a devastating potato famine caused untold deaths. Many were finding life unrewarding.

It took bravery to consider what many eventually did… to leave and find a different life in what was called “The New World”.

When the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, there was a change in perception among Britons about the possibility of settling in “The Southern Seas” because it became known then that British authority was now represented in New Zealand. British immigrants in New Zealand would have legal rights.

T

hey were brave beginners who left the British Isles to move to the other side of the world. Once there, they had to adjust to circumstances and values which had little relation to their accustomed rhythms. One of the most puzzling facts for Britons was the seasons being completely back-to-front.

Easter was on the right date - but that date in New Zealand could not be seen as the beginning of spring, which was closely connected to the symbolism of Easter in Europe. Here, some trees leaves changed to autumn colours - then those leaves were dropped in April. Soon after Easter came May 1st, which Britain celebrated as May Day the first day of summer, when villagers crowned their May Queen and there were parades in the streets and dancing around a may-pole.

But, the 1st of May in New Zealand was viewed as the ending of summer. Then you had to wear woollen clothes in July and August, until Spring came in September! October and November began to warm up but there were no robin red-breasts, no mistletoe, no snow.

And with December came the most curious change of all - Christmas in summer!

In fact the observance of Christmas, the celebration of Christ’s birth, has no real seasonal connection because nobody knows when Jesus was born. The date of December 25th was simply chosen in the year 350 by a committee in Turkey, and then decreed as the date for commemorating the birth of Jesus. But ‘winter traditions’ in the Northern hemisphere quickly grew around this chosen date. Those traditions weren’t always a comfortable fit in Southern hemisphere conditions.

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But New Zealand’s pioneer settler women were not going to be beaten.

Over time they established domestic systems, many of which remained in common use right through the 1800s, and also into the first half of the 1900s.

Laundry was boiled in a capacious ‘copper’ with a concrete casing around it and a fire slot underneath.

The ‘washing’ (always done on a Monday) was lifted out with a sturdy pole, and loaded for rinsing into one of twin tubs, with a hand-wringer mounted between them. Reckitt and Coleman’s ‘blue-bags’ became very popular – to keep whites looking white. The kitchen was dominated by a fuel-eating stove, and foodstuffs were kept as fresh as possible in a ‘safe’, a wooden boxlike structure mounted outside in a shady place with one wall of fly-proof metal mesh.

With the approach to December, the traditions of the Old Country were doggedly maintained, summer or no summer. Christmas ‘plum puddings’ were mixed, studded with sixpences, bagged, and if too unwieldy to cook in a saucepan, were boiled in the family’s (or a neighbour’s) laundry copper. Once cooked, they were wrapped and hung until Christmas Day. Roast turkey was perceived as traditional for Christmas dinner (although turkeys are not native to Britain. St. Nicholas - known later as Santa Claus came from Turkey, but turkeys don’t, they come from Mexico). Eventually turkeys became available in New Zealand.

But there was, and still is, a perception that turkeys are not good eating “if killed in a month with ‘r’ in it”.

For practical reasons, in New Zealand this perception was sometimes ignored – and roast turkey (killed in December) appeared on some Christmas tables. Later,

F EAT U R E

well into the 1900s when freezing became available, rural or industrial freezing plants began to appear, so lucky families could arrange for turkeys to be killed in their prime (believed to be August) and frozen until required by the household’s cook four months later.

But by-passing turkey, sometimes ‘Spring lamb’ could be juggled into availability on to the Christmas table, plus fresh peas and ‘new’ potatoes (even if it were a long walk to someone known to have them). And in the 1800s, long before the unavoidable Colonel Sanders, roast chicken was still regarded as a very occasional specialty. (Living poultry was required for something more frequent and important - eggs).

Having a Christmas tree in the house or the local Hall wasn’t a difficulty. Christmas trees long pre-date Jesus.

For centuries, people in Northern countries had brought evergreens of various kinds, including small trees, into houses to remind everyone that winter would eventually fade, and the other bare trees would turn green. And holly, if it could be found in early New Zealand (it did eventually become available later) like other greenery, had been taken into British houses centuries before Christmas came about, since it was firmly believed that having holly inside was a protection against asthma, rheumatism, measles, thunder, lightning and fire. Perhaps it still is!

But one Christmas factor remained unchanged; the Christmas songs the pioneer settlers sang.

Even in a sparsely populated land, music was a major interest. In Britain potential settlers to New Zealand were being advised that if choosing between bringing a chest of a drawers or a piano – to bring the piano, since “ordinary furniture can be made by any skilful carpenter”.

Settlers with pianos were arriving in New Zealand from 1841 onwards. And after the arrival of immigrant 5

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Charles Begg in 1861, soon pianos were being manufactured here.The piano was king - an important household commodity.

The piano supported the memories of singing carols and the pioneers sang them… whether they were about snow or not.

They sang: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing Charles Wesley wrote the original words in 1739. A hundred years later, Mendelssohn composed a group of tunes to mark the 400th anniversary of the invention of printing. Dr. W. E. Cummings in England chose one of Mendelssohn’s tunes and fitted Wesley’s words to it - and thus a popular carol was born.

Oh Come, All Ye Faithful The tune is so old that its origin is not definable. At various times the tune has been described as - French, German or Portuguese, which really means ‘nobody knows.’ Its melody seemed to have been familiar to Mozart and Handel since echoes of it can be traced in some of their works.

During the 1600s Latin words were set to the tune, and in 1841 The Rev. Frederick Oaksley translated the Latin words into the English version as sung ever since.

Once in Royal David’s City During the 1800s, Mrs. Cecil Alexander wanted to make her godson’s bible study more entertaining. The poem she wrote was first published in 1848 in Hymns for little Children. A year later, the English organist Henry John Gauntlett discovered the poem and set it to music. It was published in 1849.

Silent Night Possibly the most famous and best loved of all Christmas carols came about because of mice! In 1818 the organist in a small village church in Austria discovered that mice had eaten holes in the church’s organ so for the Christmas service the priest and the organist hastily composed a song which would be accompanied only on guitar. The man who came later to repair the organ took a copy of the new song away with him, and from being later sung in Leipzig the song rapidly became world famous.

The village of Oberndorf still displays the original score and the guitar on which it was played.

Sometimes mystery grew from out-of-fashion words: The Twelve Days Of Christmas was (and still is) a favourite Christmas singalong, but what’s this about a colly bird? Simple.

Until the late 1700s the word ‘colly’ was short for collier (a coal-miner) covered in black coal dust. So colly bird meant what we’d call a blackbird. The later change of colly bird to calling bird achieved nothing - since nobody knows that that means either.

And when singing that Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen, early New Zealanders knew there would be no snow lying about, deep and crisp and even… because St. Stephens Day is December 26th.

The pioneers and early families sang these songs which 6

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Sir George Grey Special Collections Auckland City Libraries Ref: 2-V673

genuinely celebrated an important religious event. They were spared the modern American incursion of ‘Christmas’ songs abandoning any mention of Jesus - replaced by Mommy kissing Santa Claus, and Rudolph having a red nose.

Whatever the by-passing of traditions from their distant homeland, the pioneer households did their level best to maintain the festive and special time of the Christmas Festival.

Over time, the way of life among the early pioneers was very gradually influenced by important innovations.

About a century after the first settlers’ arrival, electricity began a slow sprawl to most areas. Gramophones (windup) crept in from the 1890s onwards, and radio broadcasts began in 1922. The signal was sometimes rather faint and as radio became popularly accepted, homes in wide countryside needed quite ambitious aerials for good reception.

The very few wealthy could buy an early-type refrigerator in the 1920s, but for many, the keeping of food fresh was still the ventilated ‘safe’ or the icebox. In the 1940s fridges started to be less expensive. 1958 saw the first supermarket (there are now over 250 supermarkets in New Zealand).

And then 1960 saw the debut of television.

But the New Zealanders’ celebration of Christmas, from the pared-down early days of pioneers right through to the 1950s, had considerable integrity - spared as they were from the frenzied advertising to spend-and-buy, which has now become an inseparable part of December, and has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus.

So a big Hurrah for all those pioneer households, particularly the mothers and wives who made the adjustments (no matter how tiresome ) to keep the spirit of Christmas alive. Even with a calendar which to them was upside down. n 7

F E AT UR E

The Early Days of New Zealand Newspapers Ian F. Grant

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arly New Zealand newspapers were a remarkable phenomenon - when communications were no faster than the wind in a ship’s sails. Partly the result of development patterns and challenging terrain, during much of the nineteenth century there were more newspapers in New Zealand per head of population than anywhere else in the world. By 1860 a total of 31 newspapers had appeared nationally - five in Wellington, four in Russell, two in New Plymouth, two at Wanganui, ten in Auckland, two in Nelson, three in Dunedin, and three in Lyttleton / Christchurch.

This tenacious thirst for news produced heroic efforts to ‘plant’ newspapers in inhospitable places with handprinted papers delivered to the remotest areas; it also often resulted in rowboat races, sometimes in high seas, with reporters trying to be the first to claim prized overseas papers on arriving ships.

It is easy to forget, with the twenty-first century’s plethora of ways to communicate, that in the nineteenth century New Zealand’s newspapers were, short of personal conversations, posters and handbills, the sole method of providing a community with news and information.

They shared essential intelligence, stimulated public debate, furthered or diminished careers. Correspondence columns, often with erudite letters of a length and ferocity today’s editors would blanch at, were sometimes useful space fillers, but they were also clear evidence of the vital role played by newspapers.

The importance of advertising in the country’s newspaper story is rarely acknowledged. It was, in fact, crucial to survival from the first issue of the NZ Gazette on Petone beach. Of the four pages in most early papers, usually 50 percent of space was taken up by advertising and most of the rest, issue after issue, provided local, other settlement or international news, very stale though it might be.

Newspapers also provided new and, then, established, communities with standing and status and were often their principal ‘boosters’; they were an important part of the glue that held communities together, providing news about local events, groups and people. More widely, particularly after the provincial system ended in 1876 and, later that decade, the telegraph-linked Press Association began, they played a vital role in sharing the same national and overseas news throughout the country, encouraging citizens to see themselves as New Zealanders rather than giving primary loyalty to a province.

The offices of the Egmont Settler in Stratford, about 1903.

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington NZ. Ref: 1/1-006001-G

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A Reason to Celebrate

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A successful launch of the pontoon for the Orwell Creek dredge in 17 January 1901.

The event was obviously quite an occasion for the West Coast’s Ahaura district, judging by the men and women in Sunday best squeezed aboard. Courtesy: History House, Greymouth.

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PO E M

Childhood Chuckles Robert Taylor

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s a child I have only fond memories of life growing up in a part of New Zealand that was mainly Maori, a few Chinese and a scattering of Pakeha. I grew up with Maori culture in Mangere, most of my friends were Maori and their parents spoke English but their grandparents had no English and the children would translate for them. We moved to Onehunga, the bottom of Queen Street, near the wharves. Across the road was the Manukau Hotel and it was here that the trams would swing over the power poles to begin their journey back to Auckland City. The old Mangere Bridge ran across the back of our house.

The harbour was no tourist attraction in those days, heavily polluted it stank at low tide and midges filled the air. That has all changed now and grey herons search for fish around the shoreline. We were fortunate to have the friendship of the Maori King Koroki and his assistant Bo Ratana. There is a new bridge now and Mangere is a massive city where it used to be open fields and swaying toitoi.

The poem, written in six segments, is a description of life in the 1950s and ’60s when trams trundled up and down Onehunga’s Queen Street; a tongue-in-cheek description of the area, its trams and eccentric people. It has been compiled in fond memory of King Koroki and Bo Ratana. Although blind, Bo saw it all! “Hakoakoa” is the Maori word for skua, a hawk-like gull common in southern waters, especially Antarctica.

A Sagging Bridge Old Mangere Bridge, now cracked, dipped and swayed, many times was said to fall, condemned, it stands still and sags on rusting rails, challenging once putrid mud it stays amongst the aniseed fennel.

Fishermen’s boats still beat the tide, and lavish yachts, with sails unfurled splash colour… where rusted coastal freighters called.

An aging concrete remnant, the bridge, painfully crawls its way, like a giant grey caterpillar, across less muddy folds today.

Retired now, it lazily dreams, monochrome images of those who walked or drove past these broken walls and rails.

Treasured memories creep like weeds, many ghosts lurk within the darkened cracks and seams.

The Corner Store Do you recall the rusty, dusty old Four Square store?

Huddled precariously on Queen Street’s corner near the bridge.

Perhaps you do. Bill Henry owned the shop.

Like the bridge, it also leaned and aged as all we Onehunga locals did, but more.

Few mourners let our passing by, for all I think are gone or dead.

Waka Nathan bought the pub instead, to save it from the ‘dozer’s blade, but the store went, with our houses nearby.

Sadly, like Ricky May, they too have had their day.

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Childhood chuckles echo in my mind, raw pipis torn from the shell, bloody knees, drifting toi toi and always, the aniseed smell of green fennel, sharp blades of flax waving on a sulphur breeze.

These treasures I still find, lingering on the dusty shelves of my mind.

That store, I’m sure, was held together by numerous tin signs nailed against its walls, shouting silently their sponsor’s wares.

I still hear their vagrant calls.

“PERSIL WASHES WHITER!” But it didn’t beat the awful smell of Manukau Harbour’s muddy swell, where all the waste, and yellowed water fell.

Sometimes the air hung as black midges, in gaseous wells of swirling clouds.

At night it crept like thieves through my window, a suffocating blanket, determined to steal sleep with its acrid, choking flow, and sulphurous shrouds.

Sometimes, in the flapping wind, a rusted sign would repeatedly sing.

CAPSTAN PLAIN! CAPSTAN PLAIN! CAPSTAN PLAIN! From the nailed and cracked weather boards came that familiar metallic din.

A nail in the corner gone, perhaps to someone’s coffin.

P OEM

A Rat in a Pie By the door, that tinkled a bell when opened, was a sign I’d painted for pocket money as a kid.

“OH FOR ONE OF BILL’S FRESH PIES!” Not so fresh it seems, or made by Bill, well, just a commercial pack of lies.

I remember the day, while bagging flower, a disgruntled Maori customer came in, to return half of Bill’s meat pie.

Seems he’d bitten into something sour and asked for his money back, “please.”

On lifting the sagging pastry lid, and peering amongst the steak and peas, Bill saw the uncooked head of a rat.

He gave his familiar, deep, monotonous, wheeze.

Old Bill Henry was cunning and shrewd.

Not to be outdone he said, “That heads not cooked old son!”

“It simply isn’t stewed!”

Not without a heart, Bill gave him another pie and said, “That’s the best I can do!”

I’ll never understand why, but that customer took and presumably eat that pie.

Clattering Trams Tramcars regularly trundled past the shop, rattled windows, hummed and clanked, and outside the Manukau Hotel they stopped, thirsty conductors often popping in.

Here they’d tilt the wooden slatted seats, swing a sparking pole for power, and, where the polished tramlines crossed

a silent street, the tramcar would jiggle, turnabout, tossed by its constant, sparking, humming, bower.

Up Queen Street again it goes, up the middle of the road, leather straps swaying in rhythm to its load, back to the city via Tin Tacks Corner, Royal Oak, Epsom and New Market.

Clanking, clattering trams, like the shop, have gone now, more’s the pity.

The army camp, what larks, where Yanks had their last home, no more a tent city. A rubbish tip and now a park, no vestige but these words, the fennel, and a pub, remain.

I still see the tramcar, throbbing, awaiting its run.

No ‘Clippy’ or driver in sight.

No doubt they’d joined the ‘Wharfies’ for another swill, a beer, a rum, a dram, a shout, a round, a toast, a bite. The driver’d keep the brass handle in his pocket, well out of sight.

Timetable measured drinks, brought two warmed, smiling ruddy faces, spilling from the bar.

The ‘Clippy’ and driver laughing in the sun swaggering, joshing, leaping to the car.

Ding! Ding! The Conductor pulled the string.

The tramcar, creaking and whining, as if complaining at the sudden task, with a symphony of metallic sounds leaped, reluctantly, into life.

They left behind an incredible silence, where fat… rounded cars sat, parked on the kerb, awaiting their well “rounded,” unperturbed drivers, and… six o’clock.

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CHOICE

Dog-tired Sheep dogs at Grasmere Station, near the Cass region of Canterbury, in 1944. The original caption on the photograph reads: “Sheep dogs at the end of their working day. Rock mountains are tough on their feet, so on the road they are given a lorry ride. In winter time, when the mountains are under snow, conditions are even harder on the dogs. No shepherd can think of anything worse than mustering without dogs.”

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Ref: F-000913-1/4. Collection: John Dobree Pascoe Photographs.

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