Latest Issue 144

A PPET I SER

An Adventurous Life George McKnight, athlete, war hero and goldminer, is featured in an article by Lesley Treweek on page 38.

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Dear Readers, What a strange eight weeks New Zealand has experienced since I last wrote to you. How life can change in an instant! Wise words were advertised on this vintage 1940s poster - a treasure from the Turnbull Library collection - and they serve as a reminder to keep vigilant in preventing further spread of the aggressive virus.

The publication of both Issue 143 and 144 of New Zealand Memories has been timely - just prior to and after lockdown. We are grateful to our printers and mailing house for their extra efforts in keeping the magazines flowing out to subscribers. For customers who normally purchase from bookshops and may have missed out on the last issue, we do hold plenty of stock. Either ask your bookseller to contact us for supplies, or order a copy direct from the Memories office.

Working from home with no social distractions allowed me to forge ahead with preparation of material for the remainder of 2020, and the impact of isolation had little detrimental effect on our publication. Our thoughts go out to the many businesses, and the families they support, who will struggle to get back on their feet in coming months.

I love the title of Lesley Treweek’s article Gold is Where You Find It. So very true, and an inspirational read, as is David Relph’s article on life at ‘High Peak’ during the Second World War. Jeanette Grant’s schooldays are classic mid-twentieth century: school milk, skipping and hopscotch in the playground, the ‘strap’, chanting of spelling and times tables, bell monitors… all so familiar. During those same decades a surge of British emigrants included Trish McBride who gives an account of her 1952 voyage on the TSS Captain Cook and writes, “Tauranga was a sleepy little place”. There’s certainly no shortage of excellent stories in this issue to wile the time away.

Warm wishes accompany this message, and I urge you to keep safe as we proceed cautiously into Level Two.

Wendy Rhodes, Editor

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Poster courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ Ref: Eph-C-HEALTH-NZDH-1940s-01

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CONT EN TS

Editor Wendy Rhodes Graphic Design Icon Design Administration

Contents My First Day at School

High Country Life During the War

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Granny’s Recipe and Cookery Books

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1950s Tauranga

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On Time

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From the Regions: Nelson / Marlborough

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A Seaside Jaunt

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Centrefold: New Brighton Pier

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Gold is Where You Find It

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Hooked on Rag Rugs

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Memories of Napier

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New Zealand Licence Plates 1906-1965

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The Power of Advertising…

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Holidaying on My Relations’ Farm

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From the Regions: Taranaki

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Moehanga - the First Mãori to Visit England

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Index and Genealogy List

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Editor’s Choice : Born Actors

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David Rhodes Distributed by

David Relph was raised near the Southern Alps.

Ovato

Passing down the knowledge: by Bruce Isted.

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 $89.00 for Rest of the World Contributors Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ Anderson, Bruce Armstrong Family Auckland Libraries Heritage Collection Clark, Wendy de Bonnaire, John Exisle Publishing Freeman, Graham Grant, Jeanette Hill, David Isted, Bruce King, Wayne Levinson, Ralph Mander, Owen Marlborough Museum McBride, Trish Melhop, Val Nelson Provincial Museum Peka, June Phillipps, Ian Pickmere, A Picton Heritage and Whaling Museum Puki Ariki Relph, David Shields, Ted Smith, Barrie Stewart, Graham Strang, Ian Treweek, Lesley

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Jeanette Grant remembers even the smallest details.

Trish McBride emigrated from Lancaster, in Britain, to Tauranga.

John de Bonnaire relates the history of a grandfather clock.

Special excursion trams leave Cathedral Square, Christchurch.

Lesley Treweek gives an account of her grandfather.

June Peka carries on a family tradition.

Ralph Levinson writes,“baby boomer looks back”.

An extensive history from Graham Freeman.

Ted Shields treasured the time spent at Kia Ora.

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 June/ July 2020

Cover images: Hot air balloon at Pukekura Park.

Inset of a Taranaki postcard.

Both courtesy: Puke Ariki. References: PH2009-328 and ARC2008-322

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E D UC AT I O N

My First Day at School Jeanette Grant

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y birthday is the 31st of January so it fits in well with the school year and I started at the beginning of Term 1, 1945. Our Education Act of 1877 had established New Zealand’s first secular, compulsory and free national system of primary education. Under the Act it became compulsory for children from ages seven to thirteen to attend primary school. They were permitted to attend from the age of five and an increasing number did so – if there was an easily accessible school. In our case, that was Maungawhau District School in Wairiki Road, Mount Eden. This had opened in 1913 and until 1944 when the new Intermediate Schools had been set up, had provided schooling from Primer 1 to Standard 6 (Years 1-8). In 1945 however, Maungawhau was one of the many primary schools ‘decapitated’ by losing their two most senior classes, aged eleven and twelve. The roll in 1945 was down to 570.

The school buildings were built of brick which had then been faced with concrete to give an impression of stone. The sash windows were set high in the walls so we children sitting at our desks only saw sky – no Maungawhau School photographed from the Wairiki Road, Mount Eden entrance in 1950 by Reay Clarke, the author’s father.

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EDUCAT I ON

outside distractions were desired. They were so high, a long pole with a brass hook on the end was needed to open and shut them. The peaked ceilings were very very high and the freestanding coal-burning heater in every room had a hard job warming them in winter.

The caretaker lit the fires well before school and no fuel was ever put on after 10 a.m. There were a couple of electric lights in each room but they were rarely ever turned on in the daytime. While the bottom four feet of the interior walls were panelled in hardwearing varnished tongue and groove timber, the ceilings and higher parts of the walls were painted white to reflect the light.

In the classrooms, the desks were set in tidy rows.

They were not the separate tables and chairs seen today but one piece units which seated two children.

Some seats were fixed and the actual desk top could be slid forward to give room to stand up. Others had seats which tipped up – but some had a single seat so if one child wanted to stand up, both were disturbed.

Another design had the desk lid lifting up but most just had a shelf underneath where the children’s books were kept. The teacher could walk backwards down the aisle and check that they were all tidy. Our books and exercise books lived in these desks. Homework was little more than having our parents check our times tables and spelling words with no textbooks involved to be taken home. We certainly did not carry bags of books around all day! No-one wondered about them being safe. Theft was not something we expected. At primary school, nearly all lessons were taken in your home room so there was little chance of anyone else using ‘your’ desk. And it was ‘your’ desk.

If the teacher ordered you to move to another place in class, it was usually because your behaviour meant you had to move away from friends you had been caught talking to.

There were two school buildings; Primers and Standards with a staffroom in each and even the playground was divided. Not by any physical barrier, but by convention policed by the children themselves.

I can still remember standing on the invisible line between the two playgrounds, putting one foot boldly over the ‘line’ and hearing a chorus of “I’ll tell on you” from my playmates. The primer children (Years 1 & 2) spent most of their playtime just running around, skipping, playing games like ‘The Farmer in the Dell’ and ‘Oranges and Lemons’ or using chalk to mark out the squares for hopscotch. There was no play equipment, no jungle-gyms, no organised lunchtime sports.

I do not even remember the term ‘pupils’ being used 5

E D UC AT I O N

Maungawhau School, 1945. The author, Jeanette Grant, is in a striped cardigan with a white bow in her hair (fourth from the right in the back row of girls).

at that time. Certainly the vocabulary was quite different. We had a ‘Headmaster’ – Mr Woods - not a Principal and certainly no Vice-Principal. The ‘Senior Lady’ was Mrs Fitzgerald and in the Primers, Miss White was the ‘Infant Mistress’. No-one had yet dreamed up a ‘Senior Teacher of Junior Classes.’ We didn’t have a school hall but we did have our own Dental Clinic on the Ellerton Road boundary. Our ‘lavs/lavatories’ are today’s ‘toilets’, ‘prefabs’ are ‘transportables’, ‘playtime’ has become an ‘interval’ and ‘composition’ is now ‘written language’. I did not hear the word ‘toilet’ used until I started at Epsom Girls’ Grammar in 1953. The sewerage had reached Mount Eden in 1921 and on the Ellerton Road side of the playground there were two small blocks of open ‘lavs’ with a corrugated iron wall providing privacy. The only actual door was on a larger one reserved for staff.

Drinking and smoking were both forbidden on Education Board property, so the smokers on the staff would wander down the drive at lunchtime to the footpath outside the school gates and enjoy their smokes in public.

On this fine summer morning, I remember my mother and I walked down Wairiki Road to the school in company with Neville Wishart and his mother Linda. She was a widowed friend of Mum’s and they lived on the corner of Watling Street and Ferryhill Road. Neville, his older brother Des and I were the only children at that time who crossed Mount Eden Road to go to school. Most of the houses on our side of the road had been built about 25 years earlier and their owners’ families had grown well past the primary school stage.

The school day started at 9 a.m. and finished at 3 p.m. We had a 15 minute long morning tea break at 10.30 and an hour-long lunchtime from 12 -1 p.m. However the new entrants were allowed out at 2 o’clock when the bell rang for a five minute toilet break. On that first day, Mum was waiting for me at the gate but that did not become a habit. After all, in those days the traffic on Mount Eden Road was so light, even a five-year-old could be taught to cross it safely.

School uniforms were then unknown at primary school. We did not even have badges. Boys wore shorts and shirts with jumpers in winter. Girls wore frocks and cardigans or skirts and jumpers. No-one wore longs to school – even in the depths of winter. Hats or caps were commonly worn. Jandals did not reach New Zealand till the 1960s so Roman sandals were the normal summer wear and stiff leather shoes in winter. Raincoats were the genuine ‘macintoshes’ (nicknamed after my ancestor who patented the rubberising process to waterproof fabric in 1823.) Sandshoes (not sneakers) were worn only for sports and spent the rest of the day in a shoe-bag 6

EDUCAT I ON

“Boys wore shorts and shirts with jumpers in winter.”

hanging on the owner’s peg. Boys regularly went barefooted and no-one looked sideways if girls did too.

On this first day I wore a brand new schoolbag over my neck and left arm. These were made of leather with a buckle to hold them shut and a long strap. Boys however preferred to put both arms through and wear them as backpacks. They didn’t hold very much, but they didn’t need to. There was little homework set at primary school level so all I expected to carry were my lunch sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper, a spelling notebook and later maybe a School Journal or book to read.

My memories of that first day are limited – although I have often been told that on entering the Primer One classroom for the first time, I am supposed to have said in a voice which combined surprise and delight, the one word “Boys!” I had no brothers and my only two male cousins lived in Waitetuna and Whangarei so boys were a novelty. We later went camping with second cousins, but none of them were exactly the same age and to small children a year makes a big difference in compatability.

Those were the days of ‘school milk’. Started in the Depression years as a means of supplementing the food of children, many of whom were in danger of getting rickets from their inadequate diets, the provision of a halfpint (0.284 litre) of milk daily for every primary age child also helped the income of local dairy farmers who were feeling the economic pinch as well. However, it gave me and many others 7

E MI G R AT I ON

Tauranga in 1951. Uncle Jim Murdoch, who was already living in Tauranga, posted this photograph to us in England prior to our emigration. It was a small town in those days!

1950s Tauranga Trish McBride

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n 1950, Uncle Jim, Aunty Di and cousins had emigrated from England to Tauranga. My parents decided we would move there from Lancaster to join them in 1952. We packed up, and ceremonial family photos were taken. In May we went by train to Glasgow. We were met in Carlisle by a colleague of my father who gave little sister Jane and me beautiful chocolate figures shaped as Dutch children. I’d never seen white chocolate before. It was as amazing as the black swans we’d been told we’d see in New Zealand! We boarded TSS Captain Cook, sailed down the Clyde and began the six-week voyage to our new life.

Seasickness at first, but got over it. Astonishment at the heat, palm trees and ‘black’ people of Curaçao in the Dutch West Indies. Fascination with the journey through the Panama Canal: multiple locks where the ship was pulled along by little engines called mules. Then the long haul across the Pacific. My parents made friends with a couple of families and some single people, which began life-long friendships. Mum spent time embroidering 16

EMIGRATI ON

the table-cloth I still have, nearly seventy years on. She had agreed to emigrate to New Zealand, not to Australia like some of their friends, because of snakes. We were well on our way before she heard about earthquakes!

Dad must have planned ahead for the fancy-dress competition; he concocted a prize winning one for me. A small blue blanket hung from a bit of dowelling and a cord round my neck, displaying maps of our voyage from England via Panama to New Zealand, which was traced by a strand of wool, with various events on the voyage denoted. I got a red tartan scarf as a prize. Another notable occasion was ‘Crossing the Line’. The traditional ceremony had a King Neptune with trident who supervised the lathering of victims and dunking them into the little swimming pool. I don’t recall having had choice in that! I still have my certificate. There was a laid-back school activity on board for the children. We learned our new national anthem and some New Zealand geography. I still have my autograph book with various crew signatures.

Eventually, we entered Wellington Harbour on 23rd June, in the worst southerly in 25 years. The forbidding rain-swathed mountains to our right looked nothing like the postcard pictures we’d seen of green pastures and gambolling lambs. We disembarked and found our way across to Wellington Railway Station for our overnight train to Frankton Junction near Hamilton. No-one had told us about hiring pillows, so it was not a comfortable ride. At dawn it was off the train and onto the bus for the trip over the Kaimais to Tauranga. The mountain pass was unsealed in those days and it was foggy, so that wasn’t comfortable either. Then the bus broke down at Tauriko, so someone rang Uncle to come for us in his car. It was good to see a familiar face!

Once into Tauranga, we stopped at a dairy and Jim bought me my first New Zealand ice-cream – raspberry ripple, the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted in all my life! Shortly, we got to their home and re-united with Aunty and cousins. On my bed was a beautiful wooden ruler inlaid with New Zealand woods. And an odd plastic thing - a lunch-box for taking my sandwiches to school, a new thought. A few days of sunshine soon dispelled the memory of the tricky arrival experiences. Tauranga was so beautiful!

After three weeks, the four of us moved into a one-bedroom bach on the corner of what is now 15th Avenue and Cameron Road while a house was being built for us in Greerton. The first impression was lino that had a black pattern - but it moved! A severe infestation of ants! Poison was acquired and we got used to thankfully diminishing piles of little black bodies round the pots each morning. We were there maybe a year.

Our relations lived in Grace Street, so starting school at St Mary’s Convent in Morris Street from there was really easy. Later, when we had our own home in Greerton, I used to ride my bike

“Once into Tauranga, we stopped at a dairy and Jim bought me my first New Zealand ice-cream - raspberry ripple, the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted in all my life!”

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New Brighton Pier Swimming in the surf – note the surfboards - or simply digging in the sand, New Brighton beach provided a memorable outing in the 1910s. Dressed in casual Edwardian attire, the seaside jaunt with a walk along the pier was reminiscent of ‘Home’ for many of the day-trippers. Advertisements displayed on the pier include: ‘SEE THAT YOU GET FERN LEAF BUTTER’, ‘F. E. BARRETT, REGISTERED PLUMBER’ and ‘GO TO STRANGES’.

The New Brighton Pier Company launched the idea to build the pier in 1888 and, after numerous difficulties, the wooden pier was opened by Governor General Lord Glasgow on 18 January 1894 to the delight of a large crowd of Christchurch citizens assembled for the ceremony.

Reference: http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Photos/Collection22/02329.asp Courtesy: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 35-R350

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Star, Issue 4854, 19 January 1894 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS18940119.2.24

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Holidaying on my Relations’ Farm at Oamaru Ted Shields

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rom about ten years of age until I attended secondary school, I would be sent by train to Oamaru to stay on my relations’ mixed farm. This would occur sometimes twice a year and I would travel by myself, usually in a single seat behind the washroom area of the carriage. My mother would telegraph my aunt in Oamaru advising her of my seat number after it was confirmed prior to the train departing. Although my aunt did not have a phone connected there was a ‘Telephone Bureau’ about three kilometres away and the telegram would be delivered from there Upon arrival at Oamaru, my aunt would be waiting for me and Uncle Harry would then drive us back to the farm at Kia Ora, which is a short distance inland from Weston.

Upon our arrival it was a matter of changing into my old clothes and then head out to the paddocks to find my cousin Gordon. Although he was about nine years older than me, we had a fantastic relationship and would work together all day. In retrospect I now realise my uncle expected me to earn my keep and, of course, working also kept me occupied.

I have fond memories of the way my auntie cared for me. Water was scarce and the house supply relied upon the meagre rainfall so there were seldom baths to be had. The men took it in turns to wash in an old tin basin sitting on the wood bin by the washhouse and my aunt would give me a good wash each evening by sitting me on the kitchen table with a basin of warm water beside us. I particularly remember her washing between my toes.

My memories of those holidays are varied because they were at different seasons of the year.

Wintertime was always cold down there but I have no memories of it ever raining, but naturally it must have. The first job in the morning was to go out with the men on the dray which had old “Belle” in the shafts and we would head for the heap of mangolds which had previously been harvested and stored for the cows. Once at the heap we would each be armed with a pitch fork and push one prong into a mangold and then throw it up onto the dray. The trick was to 56

get the fork at a certain stage of its inertia and then abruptly stop so that the mangold would slip off and land in the dray. After loading up we would then head out to the paddock of cows and carry out the procedure in reverse.

Summertime was the best. If we weren’t making hay we were harvesting the grain or else small seeds.

Once the hay had been cut it was dried by the sun, then it was raked with a horse drawn hay rake into windrows where it would be cocked and then gathered up by forking it onto a dray. Once loaded it was then taken to the site of the haystack which was built by experienced hands. As well as those who tossed the hay up to the stack, there were also those who actually built the stack by placing the hay in a methodical way so as to ensure the stack was uniform and stable.

When the Second World War was over my uncle purchased a McCormack Deering header harvester and with this he would head his own crops, whether they be wheat or ryegrass and clover. The latter were harvested at the same time and would be separated by the machine and bagged individually.

Oats were also grown but these were for pig food and chaff for the horses. The oats were harvested with a horse drawn reaper binder which cut the stalks just above ground level and tied the product into sheaves.

These in turn were gathered up by manual labour and stooked to dry. The stooks were like an upside down V with the heads to the top and stacked in groups of seven sheaves per side. Once dry, these would be carted to the site of the stacks which were built in a circular shape and with the heads of the sheaves laid inwards. This entire building job was an art in itself and the top layers would be shaped to effectively make a sloping roof. Such a stack, when properly built, was a sight to behold.

One of my jobs was often to take out the morning and afternoon tea to the men who were usually quite a long way from the house. Both my auntie and my cousin Joan were fantastic cooks and their baskets of goodies were absolutely delicious. There would be hot scones wrapped in a tea towel, jam to go with them and other assorted cookies, plus a large billy of hot tea.

S TORY

My cousin Gordon is fuelling up the header harvester. I am standing behind Uncle Harry.

The billy was always an old treacle tin of the large size complete with its lid and with a wire handle. Those men lived on the best of tucker.

When my cousin Gordon had gained the confidence of his father he then set about to change a few things on the farm and introduced sheep. The highlight of this was when the wool shed was built and a dance was held in it to celebrate its completion. Then, when Gordon celebrated his 21st birthday, his party was held there.

The community, although spread over a large area, was quite social. Every Friday my uncle and aunt would get dressed in their good clothes and go into town for the day. The first call was to the “egg floor” where Auntie Lil would leave the pullets’ eggs she had gathered. They were delivered in wooden crates with wire divisions and would be stacked on the carrier fixed to the rear of the old 1929 rag-top Chevrolet car. Then we would set off to do the shopping. Uncle Harry would head off to the stock firm whilst Auntie Lil would take me in tow and we would traipse from one end of the town to the other. There were a lot of stops in between so that auntie could have a chat with many of the numerous people she seemed to know.

The thing I remember most before going into town was Uncle Harry polishing his big brown boots. Both my uncle and cousin Gordon were well built men and had enormous boots.

The old Kia Ora School, which had long ceased to function as a school, had become the place where the locals would meet for various pursuits and also for dances. There were “tin cannings” and also celebrations for those locals who had returned from the war. Music was supplied by someone on the piano and Gordon with his piano accordion. Oamaru at that point was a dry town and there was nowhere locally where alcohol could be purchased. This didn’t appear to cause a problem because there was always a lot of beer at these functions and it was usually consumed in the darkness outside the hall.

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CHOICE

Born Actors This 1935 promotional photograph for the company ‘Candy Filters’ features five-year-old Bruce Anderson. The manager of the water filter company orchestrating the publicity was Mr Denis Mansagh.

“I am on the left with the filtered water while Graham Mansagh holds a glass of water from, presumably, the tap”, writes Bruce.

The expression on Graham’s face says it all!

Courtesy: B. Anderson

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