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North Shore History: David Verran
North Shore Bohemians? By David Verran
I recently read Murray Edmond’s ‘Time to make a song and dance; cultural revolt in Auckland in the 1960s’ (Atuanui Press, 2021) and really enjoyed his depiction of Auckland and Aucklanders at that time. I particularly appreciated his description of the involvement of Wynne Colgan (1922-2011) in Auckland cultural matters. He was Deputy City Librarian at Auckland City Library until 1982, and originally hired me at that Library back in 1977.
It was fascinating to recall and learn new things about such people as Arepeta Awatere (1910-1976), Bob Lowry (1933-1963), Anna Hoffman (1938-2014), theatre’s Ronald Barker (1913-1968), Tom Pearce (1913-1976), the Art Gallery’s Peter Tomory (1922-2008) and Barry Crump (1935-1996). Also of interest were locally produced films at that time and the Auckland Festival. I was also drawn to Edmond’s descriptions of the North Shore.
I have previously written about North Shore based authors Greville Texidor (1902-1964), Anna Kavan (1901-1968), Karl Wolfskehl (1869-1948), and their links with amongst others Frank Sargeson (1903-1982). Of course, Janet Frame (1924-2004) spent fifteen months living at Sargeson’s in Esmonde Road in 1955 and 1956 and then from October 1963 flatted in Northcote and Devonport. Edmond notes Frame’s poem ‘The road to Takapuna’, which was published in the literary periodical ‘Mate’ (Number 12, 1964, pages 33 and 34).
However, I couldn’t readily find that poem re-published anywhere else. It’s a pity it isn’t more widely known, and more available. Michael King’s ‘Wrestling with the angel; a life of Janet Frame’ (page 258) confirms that Frame would walk from her flat in Northcote across Shoal Bay to visit Sargeson in Esmonde Road, likely via the Exmouth Road footbridge at low tide. That journey no doubt prompted her to write ‘The road to Takapuna’ to reflect her reactions to the dramatic changes to that part of Takapuna between the mid1950s and the early 1960s.
The poem describes the environmental impact of the reclamation of Shoal Bay from 1957 to 1959 for the construction of the Auckland Harbour Bridge’s approach roads. That particularly affected the Onepoto Basin, the Tuff Crater, Barrys Point and Esmonde Road. As well as referring to the deleterious effects on the local flora, particularly trees and mangroves, Frame’s poem also notes the encouragement that reclamation had now given to motor-mowers, as a metaphor for suburbanisation.
Edmond also widens the North Shore frame to include George Haydn (1919-2005), a builder and arts patron who married the sculptor Molly Morell Macalister (1920-1979) in 1945. They lived in Purchas Road in Hauraki, while writer Maurice Duggan (1922-1974) lived in Forrest Hill Road. The Haydn’s house is listed amongst those built by ‘Group Architects’ and dates from 1970.
From 1947 onwards, the ‘Group’ provided new perspectives to New Zealand architecture and some of their houses and other buildings were constructed across different parts of the North Shore. In 2010, Julia Gatley edited ‘Group Architects; towards a New Zealand architecture’ which covers at least some of those houses in greater detail.
However, Edmond’s description of a pre-Bridge ‘North Shore Bohemia’ of the literary and socially unconventional, really only applies to a limited number of individuals, and not to residents of the North Shore in general.
I also disagree with Edmond’s notion that before the Auckland Harbour Bridge was opened in May 1959 the North Shore was more for holiday homes than suburbia. In fact, while in 1931 there was just under 25,000 people living on the North Shore, by 1945 that population had reached around 30,000 and by the late 1950s had jumped significantly to around 50,000. That was particularly in the Takapuna and East Coast Bays areas, and in anticipation of the Bridge.
Simon Gundry is a Devonport and North Shore identity, and character, who is known for calling a spade a spade. He is a director of contracting company Gill & Gundry, is an enthusiastic sailor (past crew-member of Ceramco New Zealand, Lion New Zealand and Shockwave) and is a life member of the North Shore Rugby Football Club. He has been writing this thoughtprovoking column for Channel ever since the very first issue (well over a decade ago!).
40 years ago…
Simon Gundry.
I’m writing this article in late August, actually on August 29th. I’m over talking about Lake Road, I’m over talking about Covid 19 and I’m over talking about our lack of leadership, both locally and nationally, so I thought I would write about one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had in my life.
So I go back 40 years to 1981, when I left Portsmouth on a yacht called Ceramco New Zealand at the start of the 1981-82 Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. This campaign had by this stage been in existence for nearly a year, when a 32 year old yachtsman, Peter Blake, had a dream to enter a NZ flagged yacht in the Whitbread Round the World Race.
With huge tenacity and drive, his dream was to have a NZ designed yacht, built in NZ and sailed by an all NZ crew to participate in this epic race.
Alongside us, starting on that day, were no fewer than 32 yachts from all parts of the World. The course was to take us around the world, with stops in Cape Town, Auckland New Zealand and Mar del Plata in Argentina. This course was some 25,000 miles.
On board with me that day, along with Peter Blake, was our Doctor Trevor Agnew, our cook Paul von Zalinski, Geoff Stagg who worked for the Ford Motor Company in Wellington, Richard MacAlister, a marine bioligist also from Wellington and Aucklanders, Keith Chapman, school teacher, Don England plumber, Richard White builder, Don Wright spar maker, Owen Rutter school teacher, John Newton, lawyer, and myself, a concrete worker.
Peter had picked us from an initial pool of a couple of hundred yachtsmen who had wanted to join this epic yacht race. It had been a great summer previously, where we took Ceramco to Sydney to take part in the Sydney Hobart yacht race, winning it both over the line and on handicap. Then after the race, we took Ceramco on a tour of NZ to raise money for the campaign costs that had been underwritten by Tom Clark, the Chairman of the Ceramco group of companies.
In mid 1981 we packed Ceramco up, stuck her in a cradle and put her on the back of a very large container ship to be transported to the port of Philadelphia on the East Coast of the United States. Several weeks after she left Auckland, a bunch of us flew to Philadelphia to put the boat back together and sailed her across the Atlantic to the small port of Hamble which lies on the Southhampton waterway, where we based ourselves for the next three months prior to the start of the race. 22 days approximately into the first leg towards Cape Town on a balmy Monday morning, we were sailing in very steady trade winds towards Cape Town. The sea was a little lumpy, and the sky was clear. We were rocketing along under the number four genoa and a reef in the mainsail, when there was an almighty bang and crash from up top. Ceramco came upright and slowed. I didn’t need to look to know what had happened, we had broken our mast. God what a sinking feeling
that was, after all the time spent, all the promises, all the hopes and dreams. We sat there, 12 of us, many with tears in our eyes. It took us an hour or so to get the rig back on board, by that stage we had had time for a cup of tea. Blakey spoke to the crew and I’ll never forget his words “I don’t want anyone to become disillusioned about what has just happened. If you do become disillusioned, come and see me and we will get disillusioned together”. This was said with a very wry smile on his face. It took us approximately six hours to get a jury rig up and running so at least we Simon Gundry, 1981 – photo and caption courtesy Ceramco New Zealand crew info available via Sail-World. could sail somewhere. Then after a quick crew talk we decided instead of the easy option of heading to Monrovia to get a new mast there, we would plug on to Cape Town, as best we could, 4000 miles away. We arrived there some 49 days after leaving, and hearing the start gun in England. In Cape Town we stepped the new mast that was flown in from Auckland via London, and with the sad knowledge we had no hope of winning the race at all, we set off to complete the next three legs of the race. We won two of the next three legs, taking handicap honours. And in doing so, we won the Roaring 40’s Trophy which was for the quickest yacht through the Southern Ocean. I could write a book about this race and the adventures we had, and the great people we met. Many of them have become lifelong friends. Every year since 1982 the Ceramco crew has gathered on 21 September for a function called the Mast Falling Down Party and this year it will be the 40th anniversary. Where the crew will again gather, retell all the same stories and laugh at the same jokes that our families have been hearing for all those years. So where are we all now? Blakey died in the Amazon, our doctor Trevor Agnew went on to become a world renowned Cardiologist who went on to lead a team to do NZ’s first heart transplant. Paul von Zalinski has spent his entire life within the marine industry. Geoff Stagg went to work for Bruce Farr the designer of our yacht, in Annapolis, Maryland where he lives to this day, Richard Macalister went on to do a lot of yachting and is now the owner of a very successful marine company, Keith Chapman did another round the world race with Grant Dalton, his life ended far too young. Don England went back to being a plumber and ended up with a very successful plumbing company. Richard White continued sailing, and is now very successful in the real estate world. Don Wright spent many years overseas after that race, sailing large yachts, and he is now back in NZ working with his great friend Richard Macalister. OC Rutter spent more time sailing and then started a very successful marine apparel company, John Newton went back to the law and then got himself involved in the industrial real estate world. I did another campaign with Peter, and then went back to being a concrete worker. So that’s where it is to this day. All of us on that day in the mid-Atlantic learned how to pick ourselves up and carry on.
with Lindsay Knight
Don Gillespie’s legacy lives on at Mairangi Bay club
Mairangi Bay’s feat in providing the two men’s finalists for the recent Bowls North Harbour Winter Cup competition could not have been more appropriate.
For it helped mark the 10th anniversary of the passing of a club stalwart, Don Gillespie, who was the instigator of the special format, “Bonus fours,” under which the Winter Cup is run.
Gillespie, who died in 2011, was noted for his entrepreneurial flair and devised a competition in which in a four the lead and two had even more responsibility than the crucial roles they have in any form of bowls. As well as looking for novel ways to play the game, Gillespie was prominent in promoting bowls to the young, launching a programme at Rangitoto College.
On each end, under Gillespie’s “Bonus fours,” the two bowls of each of the lead and two are measured before the threes and fours have played, and points or shots are awarded which count in the overall score. If a team has one bowl closest to the jack an extra point is awarded and if it’s two bowls closest then it’s two points.
Almost invariably the eventual winning team is that which has had the edge in bonus points.
In winning this year’s Winter Cup, the four of Peter Orgias, Ron Horne, Phil Chisholm and Allan Langley graphically illustrated what Gillespie was trying to achieve: the importance of front-end bowlers especially in fours, and the need for accurate draw bowls.
Orgias, who skipped the winning team, said it was blessed by having two excellent players up front in Chisholm and Langley, both of whom have been Harbour junior representatives. But he pointed out that playing draw bowls was also the strength of Horne and himself.
In the final the Orgias side beat club-mates, Leon Wech, Brian Nolan, Rick George and David Payne 24-19. Mairangi’s depth was further shown with Payne a replacement for an unavailable Kevin Cameron and with a third team from the club, skipped by Jim Price, in post-section play.
In the semi-finals the Orgias four beat Denham Furnell’s Manly and the Wech four beat a strong Orewa line-up skipped by Walter
Mairangi Bays winning fours team with Bowls North Harbour president Maureen Taylor (who presented the cup) – Alan Langley, Phil Chisholm, Ron Horne, Peter Orgias (skip).
Howden and which included other centre title-holders in Bruce McClintock and Murray Vallance. Orgias rated the win, and the fact Mairangi had three teams in the last eight, as one of his most satisfying experiences in bowls. He only started playing 11 years ago because his body was having difficulty coping with his first love, golf, in which he once played off scratch. But he now finds he enjoys bowls almost as much as golf and like many who have made the switch finds a golf background helps get the right weight and green in bowls because of similarities to putting. Orewa also had a quinella in the women’s competition’s roundrobin. Elaine McClintock, Jan Harrison, Irene Donaldson and Kerin Roberts were first and in second place were Maureen Howden, Val Taylor, Christeen Dalzell and Mary Wright. Gillespie’s Bonus fours concept is also used in North Harbour’s Cadness Cup summer inter-club competition. However, among some traditionalists and sticklers for the letter of rules, it has had its critics and a few years ago there was an attempt to have it outlawed. On this occasion, though, its considerable popularity with bowlers themselves prevailed over the pedantic and the format has continued to thrive.
