Chapter 4 - The Rural Field Cadet Scheme

The first two cadets Murray Findlater and Tom Molesworth were selected in January 1940 and were directed to farms, Murray to McLeod’s at Whakapuni near Martinborough and Tom to Annadale Station near Tinui which was adjacent to Maringi, where I was to be posted the following year (1941).

Within a few months other Government Departments learned of the scheme and wanted to take part. These were the Department of Agriculture, Maori Affairs Department, Lands and Survey Department and the Valuation Department. The candidates who had missed out on the January selection were re-assessed and Jack Oughton, Jack Sherwood, Ted Martin and Peter Wheeler joined the scheme in mid 1939. Murray Findlater is the only one of the above still living. Without having a fully documented record of the early days of the scheme I have had to rely heavily on Murray to fill in the early gaps for me.

In September of 1940 an invitation to join the scheme was advertised. I replied to this advertisement and, together with the other applicants I was interviewed by Herbert Caselberg and Sam Barnett, the Public Service Commissioner. I was selected and my parents had to sign a $200 bond to ensure that I would not leave the scheme before the expiry of five years. Because so many of the candidates had to serve in the armed forces the scheme was extended to 7 or 8 years. However, the Government still insisted that I still pay the $200 although I stayed eight and a half years from January 1941 to July 1950. Later entrants had to sign a $1000 bond for a five year term and many still opted out of the scheme at the end of the five years.

After the interview for the Rural Field Cadets, Herbert Caselberg took me out to the family farm .'Stony Creek' a scrub infested hill farm out of Martinborough, to help muster the sheep out of scrub on foot, probably to assure himself he had made the right choice. Two years later Dick Western an RFC left the course and managed the property until he drew a civilian ballot farm at West Taupo.

When we worked on farms we were paid farm award wages and when attending Massey or Lincoln Agricultural Colleges we were paid 30 shillings a week and were re-imbursed for expenses incurred when moving from one job to the next. We were envied by the other students as some of them were without allowances. There were no student loans in those days. While on the dairy farm in 1941 I volunteered for the Air Forces but was turned down because I was colour-blind. This came as a complete surprise to me.

The postwar consequence of returning servicemen needing to be absorbed back into the nation’s workforce meant that rehabilitation became increasingly impossible to administer. One of the more ambitious and entirely sensible rehabilitation programmes rested on the principle that as a producer of meat, wool, dairy and forest products, it was desirable for New Zealand to build up export trade as quickly as possible. This might best be achieved by allocating State farm land to returned servicemen after they had satisfied practical assessment. These blocks of land were ring-fenced, carried a modest dwelling and hayshed, were grassed in satisfactory pasture and serviced with basic water reticulation and were ready for immediate occupation and action. Since these blocks were allocated by ballot, they needed to offer equal opportunities. 1942 values indicated that dairy farms should produce 10,000 lbs. of butter fat per annum and sheep farms over-winter 1,500 ewes. Clearly the existing infrastructure was incapable of handling such complicated issues as budgets, finance and farm performance.

By the late 1940’s much of the North Island’s central plateau of bare pumice scrub-land had been miraculously converted by the combined effects of superphosphate and the cure for bush sickness in cattle. The Lands and Survey Department developed the relatively unknown practice of breaking in accessible land by the use of crushing, burning, over sowing and aerial top dressing. Elsewhere in New Zealand similar programmes were in progress but none had the magnitude of the great volcanic plateau around Taupo, Rotorua and Hamilton. It was fine for Lands and Survey to deliver this Promised Land but quite another matter to accommodate the wide range of farmer capabilities and expectations.

Click to read article:

The Rural Field Cadets prescription followed an intense but far-reaching introduction to farming and academic achievement. The annual intake was selected from around 100 applicants, twenty or so of whom were invited to Wellington to meet the Scheme Supervisor and State Advance dignitaries. It seemed to me these gentlemen were more interested in selling to returned servicemen those dreadful state houses which had put the name Fletcher flying from various mastheads. The seventeen successful candidates would not only satisfy rigorous academic and leadership criteria, but have proven abilities in such essential as horse-riding, hand-milking and sheep shearing.

Towards the end of the year I got written advice that I was to report to Maringi Station in the Bideford district north of Masterton on the 6 January 1941, and was advised to contact Kerry Mayo at 72 Wyndham Avenue, Lower Hutt on the day before. I would stay with the Mayo’s that night and then Kerry and I would take the rail car to Masterton and catch the mail car out to Maringi.

On New Year’s Day 1941 the Wright family had invited Dave and Kate Tavendale for dinner. When my parents told the Tavendale’s that I was going to work for Oliver Bunny at Maringi, Dave and Kate looked at each other. It turned out that they had met and married while they worked at Lagoon Hills when Oliver Bunny was the manager there. Dave worked as a fencer and Kate as nanny for the identical twin sons – Dick and Joe. That was my first introduction to the family for whom I would work during the next 18 months. Kate told us that she could not tell the twins apart. But one could whistle and one could not so she would promise them a cookie if they whistled for it..

I was at Lincoln in 1946 and Dad was under pressure to plough 64 acres for three farmers who still did their ploughing with horses and because of the wet spring had missed out on getting cultivation started. Dad asked if I could help and I agreed to do the ploughing over Labour Weekend. Dad met me off the overnight express to Invercargill at 3am at Studholme Junction. We went home for breakfast and to cut my lunch and then loaded the TD6 on the truck (Dad had already taken the four furrow plough up to Allanholme). I ploughed 16 hours a day for the next three days. I ploughed 64 acres in 48 hours and charged the farmers £56. The cheques came to my mother and co-incided with Euan and Isabelle the Italian bride coming to New Zealand on a passenger ship. They wired my mother for money and she cashed what I considered to be my cheques and sent the money to them. So much for my effort. It has always been a sore point in our relationship.

MARINGI

On my 16^th birthday the staff at the Valuation Department woke up to the fact that they had been taxing me 2/6d in the pound which was incorrect. Just before Christmas I was refunded the overpaid tax and that enabled me to pay my fare home for Christmas. That was in 1940 and I had been accepted for the Rural Field Cadets Scholarship. I had been advised just before Christmas that I would be reporting on 6 January to Maringi Station which was 26 miles north east from Masterton. I am sure I was reimbursed for the journey from home to Masterton .

We caught the mail car out to Maringi and the Station paid the fare.

When we cadets were on the farms we were monitored by R H Bevin, a lecturer in farm husbandry at Lincoln College and, for a short time, by R H Wilde, headmaster of Feilding Agricultural High School whose son, Peter, was a Rural Field Cadet but he took employment with the tobacco industry at Motueka. We had to send reports to these gentlemen who answered queries about stock management etc. On the domestic side we were to liaise with the local State Advances Field staff. While we were at Maringi we were monitored by Ian McDonald who, from 1925 to 1935, had farmed on the terrace land over looking the Waihao Forks hotel. Mr. McDonald lost the farm because of the Depression and, initially went to Te Kuiti where I understand he was a very popular field officer with the farmers struggling through depression. Having suffered insolvency himself he would naturally be sympathetic. From Te Kuiti he was transferred to Masterton and became the senior field officer.

The nine kilometres or six mile western boundary of Maringi was completely bounded by the Taueru River and the homestead, the cook house and shearers’ quarters were all built close to the river bank, but near the south end of the station.

The Taueru River valley was formed prehistorically by a major earthquake. We had no idea of this until one night just before midnight we were woken by a rumble and then a vigorous shaking. Not enough, however, to tip us out of our bunks nor enough to frighten us out of bed or out of the safety of being indoors in a wooden building. The earthquake was at 11 pm on 25 July 1942 and was recorded as Force 11 in the Levin Chronicle, but I believe it would not have been Force 7

We were 26 miles north of Masterton and it appears that the town was nearer the centre of the disturbance. The shake shook the heavy sandstone and concrete facades off the fronts of substantial buildings in the business area of Masterton. Fortunately there was no one on the streets and none of the parapets crashed inwards so there were no casualties, but created a very untidy footpath.

Around the station there were no visible effects such as slips on hillsides or river bank subsidence. The chimney on our accommodation was on the exterior of the building but only the top half broke away from the base.

There was an after shock late in the afternoon and initially the horses galloped around the holding paddock and the dogs were barking and howling. Then the shake went up the valley. The cook house and shearers quarters rose and fell as though there was a big roller running along under them.

At Maringi I believe we were taken advantage of. I was only 16 years of age, my wage was 18/6d per week and found. “Found” was valued as £1.0.0d per week. This was taxable at 2/6d (2 shillings and six pence) in the pound, leaving me thirteen shillings and ten pence in my hand. We were 26 miles from Masterton, mostly by gravel road. Every six weeks we would cycle to Masterton, leaving at mid-afternoon and travelling over gravel roads. After having a haircut and enjoying a restaurant meal, we would bike back arriving after midnight.

I bought a saddle for £6.0.0d ($12) and the manager sold me a strong-eyed heading bitch pup for £6.0.0d. She was extra good and my family kept her descendants until they sold the farm in 2000. Because of the isolation there was nothing else to spend our meager wages on. I was allocated a retired polo pony as my hack.

There were three rural field cadets on Annandale Station which was the next station to us. Annandale was a composite sheep station made up of four smaller stations to the north of Maringa and Tine. On a couple of occasions Kerry and I rode over there on a Sunday. It would be 16 miles to the homestead where Tom Lees worked and 20 miles to the out station where Tom Molesworth and Digger Davies worked on their own. That unit was known as Tanawha and became the property of Jim Pottinger and family when Annandale was subdivided for soldier settlement in 1946. Jim was well-known in forestry and soil conservation projects. His daughter Tinks was a very successful ODE rider. My family met her at the World 3-day event in Gawler in South Australia in 1986.

When we were biking home from Masterton we called in on Jack Rhodes, a bachelor scrub cutter employed by Glendonald Station, living about eight miles from Maringi. He claimed to be related to Sir Heaton Rhodes of Tai Tapu out of Christchurch. He could have been a remittance man (the son of a wealthy English family sent out to the Colonies because of some misdemeanor and who received periodic remittances from home). We enjoyed the spell, a cup of billy tea and a chat. Jack worked on his own cutting scrub on the 10,000 acre station. It is the original shearing shed from Glendonald that has been included in the historic shearing village in Masterton.

Written on the wall of one of the huts used by the scrub cutters:

Maringi land of rocks and rivers

Lousy with managers and jackeroos

Managers’ heaven

Tauhinu pullers’ hell

That had been written long before I worked there. The land is now all in pine trees so there is no more scrub cutting (manuka) or tauhinu pulling. The tauhinu was indicative of low fertility which had to be tolerated until the advent of aerial topdressing of super phosphate in the 1950’s onwards which replaced the hand application of manures. On reading my diary of that time there were no funds to apply fertilizer. Without fertilizer the manuka returned.

Our work involved sheep handling. Crutching sheep entailed using a hand piece to clear wool from around the tail, which meant that all the sheep had to be brought into the main sheep yards adjacent to the shearing shed. In the spring time there was docking which was carried out at satellite yards around the station, usually sited at the junction of three paddocks.

Later, Kerry invited his sister, Margaret, up to the station for the August holidays. Margaret was a senior pupil at Hutt Valley High School, without any rural skills such as riding a horse. One day Kerry and his sister set off on individual horses on the lambing beat. When I came home off my lambing beat close to 5 o’clock, I saw Kerry’s horse turned out in the home paddock. I asked Kerry what had happened to Margaret and was told that about mid-day she became tired and sore when they were travelling through the paddock called “The Peaks”, and Kerry had told her to follow the track back home and he was sure that she should arrive very soon. He was unconcerned that she had not arrived home at that comparatively late hour, but I was and as my horse was still saddled I took off.

“The Peaks” was an hour’s ride away and as it would be dark within the hour, I took off and rode at a canter to the point where they had parted which was not far from the boundary. I went to the gate on the boundary to see if I could find some hoof prints but the vital clue was that the gate was not fastened in the normal way - obviously a townie had been through so I went through. I used my shepherd’s whistle to let Margaret know that I was there and eventually she started calling out. It was not long before I found her and had to comfort her as she was very distressed - not an unpleasant task for me. She had been riding around in circles as she could not find any buildings anywhere to give an indication of where she was or who could help her.

I call where we slept the shearers’ quarters but in fact, it was both the shearers’ quarters and accommodation block. At the south end there was a two-bedroom unit for the cowman-gardener and cook (usually a married couple with no dependent children), then the kitchen, dining room, bathroom, laundry and then a single bedroom. Then there were three larger rooms with four bunks each, then another room and office adjacent to the lounge which had an open fire.

The shearing gang was all Maoris and consisted of at least four male shearers and two female fleecoes who picked up the wool and swept the board and, possibly, two other people skirting and taking the discoloured wool off the fleece and the balance to the presser. That would be nine people plus the cook. At the end of the day they would crowd into the lounge and have a sing song. The shearers and presser were males, the rest young, nubile women. One of the girls tried to tempt me out in to the moonlight but I resisted the temptation, there by preserving my virginity

While at Maringi I joined the Home Guard. We had a mock battle there and dug a trench right on the leading spur above the road. We were then given the signal to retreat. At the debriefing they said we were seen getting out of the trench and then go back into the bush and that we would have been shot. I did not mind being technically dead and that was the last time I went to Home Guard. It was a stupid thing they made us do and I was not going to be a part of it.

On another occasion there, I do not know if it was the Faloons' or the Percys' but they mae bombs out of galvanized pipe with gelignite and a fuse at one end and the other end blocked up with a bit of putty or something. They were meant to be used as hand grenades. I am glad nobody asked me to use them

There was no vehicle on Maringi, or an internal combustion engine of any sort. The rural mail came in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the manager, a widower, would go to town on the mail bus and come back two days later. After we were on the job about six months a cowman-gardener came to the job and he had a car, a coupe, which meant that we two cadets could hitch an open-air ride to town. Believe me; a second class ride in the back of a coupe is better than a first class ride on a bicycle over gravel roads.

In the 18 months I was there no bulldozer or any tractor came on to the property. A wet winter had caused a lot of damage to the dams that supplied stock water, in some instances the dam head had slipped or a land slip had part filled the dam. This had to be shifted with shovel and wheel barrow. To get to the dam site we had to tie the wheel barrow on top of the pack saddle on the cantankerous old pack horse. One day the horse insisted on walking in a deeply rutted track causing him to fall over and land in the boggy creek on top of the wheel barrow. We undid the girth of the packsaddle, got the horse to his feet, carried the barrow to dry ground and loaded the barrow back on, having strapped the pack saddle back on Ruru. It was hard work and we grizzled about getting about three pence an hour for hard labour. There were no excavators in those days and the original dam must have been built with shovel and wheelbarrow.

Before World War II, the Bunny Brothers were keen polo players and I was allocated two of the better ponies as my personal hacks. One of them could put on a mild bucking show, especially if I rested a hand over her kidneys behind the saddle, hence my purchase of a saddle with knee pads. During the year I broke in a pony for the children of Dick and Joe, the owners’ sons.

At the beginning of the second year on Maringi both the manager, Bill Richardson, and the other cadet Kerry Mayo, were called for military service. I was too young at that stage to be called for the army. The manager’s son, Charlie, had left school and he came to work, thankfully he had inherited his father’s dog, which was a big step up as Kerry was not a natural with dogs or stock, but he was good on a shovel repairing dams.

One day Charlie and I were having lunch in the whare near the stock yards when the dogs started a throaty barking. We rushed out and discovered they had chased an 8-pointer stag into an adjacent bushy gully where it had got caught up in the supplejack vine. Ignoring the danger, I negotiated the vines and killed the deer. We went home, got the pack horse and took the deer back to the homestead. We had to use a long rope on the pack saddle to pull the dead deer out of the gully before loading it on to the pack saddle. I cannot remember any opossums in those days and that was the only deer I saw, but we were told there were deer in the bush on Glendonald to the south of us.

BAILEY’S

After I finished my stint at Maringi I was to go Akers at Opiki adjacent to the toll bridge. They had expected me earlier but I was held back at Maringi until a new manager arrived there. I was redirected to the Bailey Estate between Sanson and Bulls at Ohakea. The Defence Department had bought 400 acres off FO Bailey and 200 acres off the Bailey Estate to establish the Ohakea Air Force Station.

The land was all flat and the soil was very stiff clay with very poor drainage quality. The site was chosen as there were no hills in the vicinity and meteorological records showed very few non clear days and few low windy days which were ideal for a high usage aerodrome. The first stage of development was to ring fence the newly purchased property to keep the neighbour’s sheep out, then the concrete run ways were laid cross ways across the former pasture land.

Bailey Estate retained land fronting the Sanson-Bulls Highway (now SH.1) it then skirted the east end of the west to east runway along Fagan’s Line and almost to Taylor’s Line, up to the Ohakea Hall on Frecklington’s Line. The Estate farm was managed by Rex Bailey, a beneficiary. His house had been near the Main Highway. On the day that I arrived the house was on the move sitting on a transporter in the middle of the yet to be commissioned aerodrome to a site at the west end of the farm. We had to establish a farm yard of ancillary buildings in the vicinity of the newly established house site which was on a knoll overlooking an acre of giant flax. Rex’s two spinster sisters (retired school teachers) lived in a rambling old homestead set among a plantation of old trees. I also lived in a semi-detached room on that building. They had an alcoholic gardener who had a hut to himself. The sisters provided our meals.

The Bailey farm ran about 2000 ewes. One of the hardest jobs I had to do was to dig gorse out from the flax. There was a quite good tract of flax with a giant sized leaf on it and there was gorse growing amongst it. The boss had me dig out the gorse but I was not to dig the flax. I tried to say that I thought if I ring-barked the gorse it would die but no, it had to be dug out and the flax not touched. I lost some sweat there. It was right beside his house, but I never got a cup of tea out of it. I suppose I wasn’t worldly-wise and I did not have a bottle of water with me and I had to wait until I went home to have lunch with the two old maids before I got a drink.

A major undertaking in the establishment of the base was the building of two huge round topped hangers with concrete roofs. The concrete was poured in a continuous pour and took days regardless of shocking weather conditions. There were no concrete pumps available then.

While I was at Bailey’s I had a special pass to cross the aerodrome to get to town, otherwise it was quite a lengthy ride to get back home riding around the back blocks behind the aerodrome. We took the chance of biking across the aerodrome and if a late overseas flight came in they would chase us off the aerodrome with the search lights turned on us, but I never got into trouble with anybody. There were quite a number of accidents there, especially involving the newer planes – the Kitty Hawks. But when we first went there Harvard’s were the latest plane, but around the aerodrome were parked old Vickers Wildebeests, Tiger Moths and Gipsy Moths. The Vickers Wildebeests were bi-planes and they were sometimes taken up to fly and they had little torpedoes under the wings. It was really a big joke. Replicas of the Hudson bombers were also put around the perimeter. They were dummy ones made of wood, fabric, with decals on them, making it look to the casual observer that we had a large air force ready to take off and stop any projected invasion which, as we now know, did not happen.

In the comparatively short time that I was there, six months, it was interesting to follow the changing makes of airplanes as the Japanese assault moved south through the Pacific and then back north as more versatile airplanes came into service. The supply of Kitty hawks and War hawks co-incided with the resumption of our supremacy. A Kitty Hawk crashed on the farm as it came into land short of the runway and nosedived into a ditch unfortunately killing the pilot

The Ministry of Works engineers could not accept that the land had to have double the amount of drainage usually required on stiff clay soils but after a multi engine Viscount got bogged when it ran off the concrete runway they then upgraded the below the surface drainage system of tiles and moles (usually referred to as plug drains), destroying the drainage system that was put in when the aerodrome was originally established in 1942.

While I worked there the major air accident involved a twin-engine Hudson bomber which had had a major overhaul and on its test flight took off from the east-west runway when I believe the auto pilot locked in. The plane crashed into a plantation of native trees and the three crew members were killed. Three of the female ground crew had been promised the flight but were stopped by flight rules.

While I was at Bailey’s I played as lock in the Bulls Rugby team. We did not have any training sessions, just played matches on Saturdays. The only other sport I took part in was around a billiard table. On a Sunday night I would go with the Bailey boys to Harris’ on Taylor’s Line and play snooker. Sometimes we were joined by another local lad, Ed Hartley. When we lived in Bartholomew Road in 1996 he was our neighbour on the back section.

This group was the gang that often went down to Tangimoana on a Sunday, naturally with a few girls, and had a musical party at a weekend cottage owned by one of the girls. It was this group that I was showing off to when I swam across the Rangitikei River.

TAPLIN’S

After I finished my term at Bailey’s in 1944 I attended Lincoln College for eight weeks where intensive courses were held on all subjects related to farming, animal husbandry and management. Then I went to Taranaki to a farm managed by my new share-milker boss, Arthur Taplin. I was met at Hawera Railway station and taken to the farm at Riverdale, or Inaha which is on the edge of the Waimate Plain. It was coincidental I went to Waimate West as I had come from Waimate in the South Island. There are two Waimates in the North Island – the Waimate Plain in Taranaki and Waimate North in the Bay of Islands.

Arthur Taplin was quite a young man, he was a 39% share milker, i.e. the farm owner owned the cows and Arthur got 39% of the cheque. He had three young sons and they were keen horse people. They had no tractor on the farm. The old dairy factory was adjacent to the Inaha River and on the north boundary of the farm. We used to have to put the milk into 25 gallon cans, put them on the two-horse wagon and take them down to the factory. The milk was tipped into the weighing vats and then we went around the back of the factory and filled about four-fifths of the cans up with whey and then go back and feed the pigs. In its way it was quite a big operation. We milked 200 cows some of which were very good. It had been the Red River Stud which got caught with leptospirosis and, at that time, there were no antibiotics to remedy it and they had to farm their way through it. There were some goods cows descended from the pedigree herd but the herd was not tested by the Herd Improvement group.

In those days it was all quite new to me. The milking was done in a walk through shed. The cows were started by someone walking through and stripping out some milk to make sure that there was no mastitis. The cups were put on and when the flush of milk finished the cups were taken off. The cows were then stripped out to get the remaining creamy milk and they were stripped again. This I could not understand. I said that if the milk was left it would be got at the next milking. A married couple lived in a cottage on the farm with their son who suffered from polio and he looked after the pigs and, with Mrs. Taplin, helped at milking, so there was plenty of labour.

I seldom had to look after the pigs. The main day time work was cutting the big boxthorn hedges and cultivation work for the crops and fencing.

One day Arthur and I planted 500 pine seedlings along a steep bank above a creek, knowing that we were going to sell pigs at the Hawera Sale the next day. The tree lot was not fenced and the cows were to go into that paddock next night. After milking Arthur went out to the tree lot and put in a big post (the strainer) and six posts. After breakfast the next day he and I went out, he dug 25 post holes and I rammed them. I asked for a shovel to shift the loose dirt into the holes and was asked what was wrong with my boot. Since then I have done a lot of fencing and have always moved the loose soil with my boot. We ran two barbed wires stapled them on to the posts and were on the road to Hawera sale by 11 am.

Another regular job was to take the horse drawn wagon to the Kapuni River crossing nearer Manaia and load it with shingle from the river bank. We could get two loads a day to fill around troughs in the paddocks or in the piggery. One day when the Taplins were away I thought I would be smart and load the wagon on my own. I only got one load and then I was late for afternoon milking. Obviously Arthur shoveled on more shingle than I did.

Being an estate farm with absentee owners the operation was under the Supervision Department of the Farmers’ Co-op Organisation Society the principal stock firm in Taranaki. The supervisor was Len Newall, a local farmer who had acquired four farms in the aftermath of the Depression. He was very good friends with Clem Trotter, the Head of Farmers’ Organization who was a tough cookie. He steered Len into the farms by getting Len to pay the unpaid rates and take over the debt to Farmers’ Org. Clem was the father of Sir Ron Trotter who became the Head of Wright Stephenson’s.

Arthur Taplin and his wife Phyllis were keen horse people. They rode at the local A and P Shows and developed a hack into being a good steeple chaser, Lord Plato, and this horse gained 4^th place in the Pakuranga Hunt Cup.

The horses used for farm work were mostly half draughts. At lunchtime three of the four horses that would have been pulling the discs were let loose in the adjacent grass paddock and the fourth horse would be ridden home for lunch. All the boxthorn hedges had jumping scallops (low places) in them,

Boxthorn is a very good shelter hedge in the salt-laden air of South Taranaki, withstanding the burning effect of the salt-laden winds. Because of the stiff thorns no animal would push its way through. At that time there was talk of mechanical hedge cutters in other parts of Taranaki, namely Rahutu and Eltham, but the machines needed powerful motors, long ranging shafts with heavy blades rotating on the end, and metal wheels or very thick rubber – often with tyre casing over the standard tyre.

After the conclusion of World War II surplus tanks became available. Originally they were Bren gun carriers, which were okay up to a point, especially on young hedges, but heavier units, such as Scorpion tanks, were adapted with a motor on the gun turret driving the cutting arms, with the original motor still in place to provide the motive power. The old man hedges could be four metres high and 10 metres wide where they had been allowed to grow along the ground.

When Taplin wanted to tackle a section of overgrown boxthorn hedge, he would cut into the hedge a hundred metres from a gate way giving a gap where we would start a fire at both ends and confine the fire to that section. The next day we would tackle the burnt section, cutting about a metre above ground level and using a horse with a wire from the swingle tree around a major branch and back to a wire strainer attached to the swingle tree. As each limb was pulled out it was cut with the axe into lengths that could be handled by a circular saw. No chain saws then! The wire strainer enabled quick attachment and release.

We worked in with the Washer family for the haymaking as silage was not made in those days. Hay making involved cutting the mature grass, tedding it to dry it then side raking so that it could be swept with a hay sweep and pulled to the stack. A stacking mechanism, towed by one horse, would pick the hay up by a grab and lift it in the air and swing around above the stack. The grab opened and two men spread the loose hay, or, in the early stages of the stack, the sweep would back off and one or two men would fork it on to the burgeoning stack.

There were stationary hay balers, either tractor or steam driven, which compressed the hay into 30 to 40 kilogram wire tied units. One of the problems with this type of hay bale was that loose hay was needed to protect the baled hay. Hay barns were a rarity before 1940. Whilst hay making was in progress it was customary for all the females (child and adult) to milk the cows.

This season we finished Washer’s hay early on one Saturday afternoon and their son, Ted, said he and I could go to the pictures. It was about the 14^th December. I rode my bicycle back to Taplin’s and washed and changed and then rode back to Washer’s. Ted took us in his father’s 1939 V8 but unfortunately before we got to Hawera we crashed into the back of a P & T truck that had stopped to pick up three girl hitch hikers.

Ted did not get hurt but I sustained a dangerous knee injury and a front of head injury. I had to wait over two hours for an ambulance to take me to the Hawera Hospital where I stayed over Christmas. Before New Year I transferred to Elva Pedersen’s home in the Ohakea District. The hospital was concerned about the knee injury. The cartilage had been separated from the knee joint.

It was certainly the end of my dairy farming year and I had to make a full recovery before my next assignment to a cropping farm was verified. There was no adverse reaction to my knee injury and I was home before the end of January when Herbie Caselberg came to see me. I was driving the new TD6 that was a recent acquisition as Dad had got a contract to regrass a big part of Mount Harris, a 1,200 acre mixed cropping and sheep farm next to our home farm which had been acquired by the Government for the settlement of three returned soldiers.

Herbie Caselberg agreed to leave me there working for my father to serve my mixed cropping year through to March 1946, which suited Dad very well because he was behind with the cultivation programme and the harvest season was fast approaching.

When he took delivery of the new TD6 from the rail at Waihao Downs, he drove it home, as he did the two-ton in 1928, but this was 1945 and it was dusk before he got home. The motor was running erratically and he thought it may be low on fuel. He removed the fuel cap and lit a match to check the fuel levels, something he did regularly with the old TD6. But this time there was a vivid flash and mini explosion. Dad was wearing a felt hat which confined the heat to the underside of the brim; he had about a week’s growth of whiskers and naturally, was in grubby working clothes. However, I rushed him into the Waimate Hospital. When the nurses tried to shave off the scorched whiskers he has some very unkind words to say to them.

LINCOLN COLLEGE - THREE MONTHS’ COURSE

After the initial two years on the sheep station and fat lamb farms, 12 of the RFC’s reported to Lincoln Agricultural College where we had three months’ of lectures in the autumn of 1944 and prior to dairy farm experience. These lectures gave us some academic enlightenment on various subjects associated with animal husbandry, nutrition, soil science, agronomy, pasture species, basic veterinary knowledge and grass recognition that would help us to acclimatize with the farmers on our next assignment. I was surprised how little basic farming knowledge some of the other RFC’s had but I was one of two cadets brought up on farms and I realized the rural knowledge of the others was very poor. Up to the commencement of the Short Course the members had worked on sheep stations and fat lamb farms, the main purpose of that exercise was to get them talking the language and getting their boots dirty. I think the reason for the Short Course was to shake off the green horn mantle which most of the class wore.

We had a class mate who asked the farmer how much brown top seed per acre he sowed. Whereas the farm-raised students knew that brown top was a native, low producing grass that was extremely difficult to eradicate from a paddock but made an ideal lawn grass.

On the Course we were classed as 1^st year students by the other students in residence. It was tradition that 2^nd and 3^rd year students, having been initiated in their first year would initiate the following 1^st year students. As 1^st years we RFC’s reasoned we would be initiated and informed the 2^nd and 3^rd years that we would not undergo the treatment. The initiation took place at the stables where each victim had to disrobe, stand on the edge of a large water trough and sing. The standard of singing dictated the next stage which was to pour cold molasses over the victim and then throw him in the chaff bin.

Word had gone around the campus that tonight was to be the night. This was confirmed when one of the 1^st year students came to our huts and said that chloroform soaked rags had been thrown through the fanlight above the study door of some of the other 1st years. . We RFC’s said enough is enough, and we went on the war path against the 2^nd year students. They had no answer as they were outnumbered. I believe the Director, Eric Hudson, was most annoyed that one of the College traditions had been broken. Eric was very narrow minded, even those students who had been in the armed forces were not allowed to go to any of the five local hotels, but he was not able to police this edict. Many a story could be told about such indiscretions, but I was never guilty particularly as I was under age.

Above: During the Three Month Course at Lincoln College, the Rural Field Cadets played the Training College students at rugby. This is believed to be the only photo of Bill Wright in a rugby jersey - 3rd from left.

In 1944 two students who were returned servicemen came onto campus at 6 am and were seen by George Patton (now of Foxton) who reported the students to Eric Hudson and both were expelled. One of the students was a RFC and the rest of the group protested so strongly that he was eventually reinstated. This particular student followed me to the Head Office of Lands and Survey and went on to spend all his working life in the Lands and Survey Department.

After we finished the final year at Lincoln another student Murray King stayed on at Waihao Downs with me waiting to be advised of graduation day. We never were advised and had Diplomas posted to us.

At home I was on tractor work and Murray went shearing at local farms including the Royds’. This period covered my 21^st birthday. I celebrated this occasion with Murray King and John Royds who may have been four years under age. In those days 21 years was the age for drinking legally and 6 o’clock closing was in force. As at that day I was only breaking the law on one count. There was no counter lunch or pie warmer. The Waihao Forks Hotel is now known nation wide as the hotel where Ted D’Auvergne left a bottle of beer for himself to be drunk on his return from WWII. But he died on Crete. The bottle is still there in an especially built cabinet.

THE EIGHT MONTHS’ COURSE 1946

On our second stint at Lincoln College we RFC’s were part of a much bigger class than usual, it consisted of 36 students.

The course was all lectures. The same lectures that the Diploma students took as part of their course, though they worked week about, one week doing farm work on the College farm and at Ashley Dene, the dry land sheep farm on the north bank of the Selwyn River near Leeston and about 20 kilometres from the College, and the other week attending lectures.

Besides the RFC’s the students were mostly returned servicemen being brought upto speed on general farm management practice to enable them to enter ballots for the various types of farms on offer. One of the servicemen was Bruce Hayman who was my cousin. He had crashed his aircraft on Mt Etna on the Island of Sicily off the Italian coast. He had no need to upgrade his farming knowledge but because of the leg injury he sustained in the crash it was classified as convalescence.

The time between lectures was spent by eight students playing pontoon a card game on which they gambled for small odds. Some of the participants have gone on to be prominent in Farmers’ Administration, Breed Societies and Journalism, but were not helped by playing pontoon.

The lectures were given in the Memorial Hall as it had the capacity to hold a large class. It was also used as a chapel on appropriate days and the Annual College Ball was held there.

As I was the only one on the course who had not been in the armed forces I boarded with a family adjacent to the College dairy farm. The name of the farmer was Mr. Matson and he suffered from asthma. I did all the tractor work for him.

In the winter months I ran Harriers if I could get to the Canterbury College venue, or I went with the 2nd XV who played in the Lincoln District Junior Rugby competition, usually as a line umpire.

Most of the other members of the Course were billeted at Burnham Military Camp. Exceptions were the local married members who lived in Christchurch and came out on Day’s ‘bus service, except when we were going on a field trip they, with the lecturer (Alby Flay or Dick Bevin ) would be picked up at their homes in the city.

There were many school boy ‘Howlers’, most I have forgotten. Once when we were having a lecture on pasture identification and Latin names (Agroponrepins = twitch). The lecturer casually said that the Latin name for cocksfoot was penis padosa, to see some of the students studiously taking notes was a source of great amusement to the more knowledgeable students.

After the eight months course at Lincoln College, the cadets who completed the course were allocated to fat lamb buyers throughout the country for six months. I was allocated to Jack Newton, Head Buyer for Canterbury Frozen Meat Co.; he was based in Christchurch and operated between the Rakaia River on the south and the Hurunui River in the north. He counted some pioneering Canterbury families among his clients- Deans, Gillanders, Tod Hunters, McFarlanes, Morrisons (Wool Board). Jack called me the “Government stroke” but treated me as one would expect a gentleman to do.

He was a philosopher and I learned a lot from him as to how to meet clients and gain their confidence. Once he told me of going to a cricket match between New Zealand and India, the tempo was so slow his mate suggested that they should go to Papanui where there was an egg laying contest.

An incident involving early motoring involving clients of Jack’s bears repeating. Mr. and Mrs. Adams of Kowhai Bush had a new motor car, their first one. They were extremely cautious and one night they were on their way home and had to cross the West Coast railway line at Annat. They stopped the car at the crossing and Mrs. Adams got out to check if there was a train approaching. She signaled all clear (there were no crossing signs in those days). However Mr. Adams stalled the car on the crossing, it would not start so they both tried to push it off the crossing. A few moments before, while shunting at Springfield, the yard man had not applied the brakes on a rake of six trucks loaded with coal and the trucks took off on the regular gradient across the Canterbury Plains towards Christchurch. The Springfield Station Master phoned the next station down the gradient at Kirwee asking that the points be swung so that the rake would go down the dead-end, but this never happened. The rake of trucks hit the Adams’ car and debris from the collision must have had a braking effect causing the rake of trucks to stop before it got to Kirwee. Imagine the traumatic wait by the Kirwee staff. The Railway Department purchased a new car for the Adams’.

Mr. Newton drove the earliest 1947 V8 coupe which was a source of admiration by the farmer clients.

A story that involved another RFC on his term with a fat lamb buyer involved Glamis Neiderer who was coming through the RFC scheme two year after me. After I graduated from Lincoln College in 1948 I started with Head Office Lands and Survey in January 1949 and Murray King started as soil conservator with the Wairarapa Catchment Board based in Masterton at the same time. Glamis had been through the Diploma in Agricultural Course at Lincoln under his own steam and did not have to do the parallel practical work that we early cadets had to do, also he had been brought up on a large holding south east of Invercargill, being a sheep and beef farm and a flax milling enterprise at Gorge Road.

The stock buyer he was attached to, a Mr. Booth was a member of the Masterton A & P Show Association and was responsible for setting up the liquor booth at the Annual Show. Masterton had been ‘dry’ for a number of years and this was the first ‘wet’ show. When I say an area was ‘dry’ it had nothing to do with the lack of rainfall or drought conditions. It reflected the Liquor Licensing Laws where certain areas did not have hotels selling alcoholic beverages, areas such as North Otago, Invercargill, Te Kuiti a la The King Country, but this all changed in 1940 when the ‘dry’ order was voted out at the General Election in favour of establishing liquor outlets.

Glamis recommended to his boss that Murray and I were fit and proper persons to serve liquor to the public from the tent that had been erected over the temporary bar so on Show Day I contrived to go through to Masterton and we served the alcohol deprived public till 6 pm. Hours were not extended and licensing laws made more liberal until some time later. We were given half bottles of spirit as part of our pay

Next day we took three Solway College teachers out to Castle Point for a picnic (Murray had a 1935 Chevrolet car). We had an hilarious day topped off with a game of indoor bowls in the Blair Logie Hotel using ash trays as bowls. We challenged and beat a team of outdoor bowlers who had been attending a tournament in Masterton. It was ‘losers’ shout.

I met up with Glamis a number of times. When we were on our first 106 acre farm at Wahoo Downs he persuaded me to put in for a civilian ballot on the Central Plateau of the North Island. We were unsuccessful but Hec King, also an ex RFC was, but after a number of years on the dairy farm he took a senior position with the State Advances in Wellington. Eventually the job became too much for Hec and he retired.

By this time Glamis had left the State Advances and taken over as Head of J E Watson, a stock and station firm in Southland. Glamis has retired to the Gold Coast of Australia.

Murray King went on to make quite a name for himself. He was awarded Wairarapa Arbor culturist of the year and eventually he became Chief Executive Officer of the Wairarapa Catchment Board. I was best man at Murray’s marriage to Joe. Regretfully both he and his wife passed away some years ago.

After the fat stock experience covering the first six months of 1947 we were required to so some practical work so I was posted to the Land Development section of Lands and Survey in Christchurch. This was post World War II and extra staff had been taken on to buy large farms so that they could be subdivided into smaller farms that would support returned servicemen and, in time, their families. Extra staff namely Charles Upham and Peter Newton were taken on but Charles left when he drew a ballot farm on the Conway Valley in North Canterbury.

Our district took in mid and North Canterbury from the Rangitata River to Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura. Irrigation was being introduced but the main means of putting water on the land was by way of flooding within border dykes. Lands and Survey had an experimental farm at Dromore, about 12 miles north of Ashburton. The first appointed manager had been an Accountant before he served overseas but was not doing very well in developing the potential of the land under irrigation. He was moved on and I was sent there for six weeks to keep records and test the best way to apply the water. There were no clock controlled flood gates until later when we could irrigate 24 hours per day.

The Land Purchase office would buy the flat mid Canterbury farms, usually about 1000 acres, then we development officers would subdivide them into 300 to 350 acres and add or upgrade houses and add farm improvements so that each farm could operate independently. Not all the farms had irrigation water initially, generally no water – no subdivision. As the water supply was extended so did the subdivision.

It was some years before the Highbank scheme was completed where water was taken out of the Rangitata River, carried in open water courses to be discharged into the Rakaia River via the Highbank Power Station, having been piped under the Ashburton River. It was only then that the land between the Rangitata River and Ashburton was irrigated in an area collectively known as the Valetta.

By this time my father was on the Land Settlement Committee and although I was farming on my own account I was still interested and we had some worthwhile discussions but at that time we did not expect dairying to become the main type of farming there that it is today.

While I was working at the Christchurch office of Lands and Survey I was taken on an interesting diversion to Motonau Farm Settlement on the coast out from Cheviot to drive a TD9 crawler tractor into a Cheviot Railways truck and on to Christchurch to CWF Hamilton’s workshop. I helped Don McConachy (Clark McConachy’s brother) fit a bulldozer blade, then had it railed to Waiau in North Canterbury where I had a play around as it was the first time I had driven a bull dozer. (None of Dad’s tractors ever had a blade).

In Christchurch I worked in the four-storied State Fire Building. One day about 4.30 I was printing maps on the top floor when I noticed smoke rising from a building south east of our building, in the vicinity of Cashel Street. It was some minutes before I heard fire sirens. Ballantyne’s Department store had caught fire and in an attempt to prevent fresh air from fueling the fire, the management had ordered that all exterior doors should be closed. It would have been a difficult decision to make especially in hind sight as 52 lives were lost. A girl who lived with her mother next to where I boarded got out without her pay so went back to get it and was locked in and lost her life and her mother lost the only bread winner

FINAL YEAR AT LINCOLN

1948 was the final year at Lincoln College for me and four other Rural Field Cadets. They were Tom Molesworth, Eugene (Digger) Davies, Murray Mander and Tom Lees.

Our accommodation was in the pavilion attached to the newly established sports ground which, in the short term, was to be the cricket ground with the athletic running track outside the pitch. It caused some heartache to watch Murray Darling, who was a stylish runner, doing 30 laps, while I was doing my homework. I never trained in daylight and did not want to show off my deficiencies. I could only run six laps or else my calf muscles would tie up because of my flat footedness. I could jog longer distances, but that did not build up stamina. However, I could beat any of the other students at Lincoln or Canterbury College when it came to competition. I used to say if I was as good below the knees as I was above the knees I could have been a champion. Although I did not train over long distances I was quite a useful cross country or beach runner where the softer, variable surface gave me some relief.

However, when I ran relays (Carterton to Masterton and Takahe to Akaroa) I gave a good account of myself. I was running for Victoria University and we were in the lead when I took the baton at Carterton. I got the stitch halfway to Masterton letting Arthur Lydiard, that renowned long-distance runner, pass me. That was the only time I saw him in person but have seen much of him on TV in association with Snell, Halberg and Walker, to name just a few of his protégés.

Generally the week would start off with a farm inspection within an hour’s travel from the College, but that could involve a wide range of farm types, cash cropping, sheep, beef, dairy, and horticulture from flat to hill country as on the Akaroa Peninsula.

There would be an introductory interview with the farmer, then a farm walk taking notes and making sketches as we traversed the property. A final tete a tete with the farmer and maybe a call into the Local Body office or the stock and station company or the Lands and Deeds Office in Christchurch. Then it was back to the College where we wrote up a farm inspection report, an appraisal of farm management practice and recommendations on improvements and then a budget as is and after implementing the recommendations for variations and improvements.

Sometimes this assignment had to be presented by the next morning or, certainly, by the following morning, when it would be handed in. The lecturers would assess the assignments and then nominate one member to present his assignment to the class who would proceed to pull it apart.

A livestock appraisal day could include a visit to the local sale yards at Addington or to an annual sheep and cattle fair in the foot hills.

The final (VFM) year at Lincoln was a test of how a student responded under pressure. We all felt that we worked harder than the degree students. For them study through the year was optional with cramming essential just before the end of term exams.

With the RFC’s written paper work was essential from the first assignments, also no calculators or computers were available. What a boon they would have been although I took years to accept computers as tools, my view was that they could not think and were only as good as the information that was fed in and there were some inexperienced geeks setting themselves up as software whizz kids.

In essence we VFM’ers were expected to be advisors, farm consultants, legal eagles pertaining to property transactions, psychologists, soil scientists, veterinarians, land developers, accountants and anything else that posed a problem anywhere pertaining to farms and farmers and that included surveying and building construction.

We were brought up to speed on land development and building by ‘Dolly” Riddolls, a dour, monotone, engineering graduate of the bygone days. It took a big effort to stay awake in the stuffy, low profile, ex army mess hall on a hot afternoon, especially towards the end of the week after the pressure to complete the written assignment earlier in the week. We did get overnight assignments – Manfield on Gough Bay on the Akaroa Peninsula; Lees Valley on the head waters of the Ashley River; Cragieburn Station on the Arthur’s Pass rail line. Then we had two majors, a five day tour through Manawatu and Taranaki as far as New Plymouth and a seven day tour to the South Island starting in South Canterbury and then south through Central Otago to Southland.

This latter trip was lead by Monty Cook. He had never taken a senior group of students and did not quench our thirst for knowledge. We would go for miles without any comment on soil types, carrying capacity or history. One day we were travelling through Central Otago and approaching the Teviot Settlement when I saw my father’s car coming towards us. They recognized the Green Lincoln College bus and stopped. I asked Mr. Cook to stop but he told the driver to keep going. We were not given any details for our note books. He made no mention of the historic gold mining, the fruit industry or the home of the Corriedale sheep.

When we got to Gore that night via Moa Flat Station the class members were getting pretty sullen and even though it was Sunday night, Cook told the publican not to open the bar. That, of course, gave us time to appoint a Council of Revolt. A spokesperson was appointed to telephone one of our regular lecturers, either Flay or Bevin, to explain that the trip was a waste of time and that we should return to College. It was agreed a replacement leader should be sent and Frank Ward, a returned soldier and a VFM graduate of 1938, arrived on Sunday night and Cook must have ridden off into the sunset. Frank Ward was a very likeable fellow and things improved from then on.

Back at Lincoln Cook earned the nick name of “Dog Tucker”. He asked why and Blair Niederer (Glamis’ brother) told him that had he been a ram that is how he would have ended up.

After Glamis Niederer graduated with the VFM he was posted to State Advances Corp based in Rotorua. We would holiday in Rotorua and invariably Glam would have a heap of builders’ mix (concreting shingle) a few bags of cement and the concrete mixer and we would help him lay the concrete drive to his new house, or whatever other job he needed doing. He told us the story of one of the State Advances dairy farming clients. This farmer was on the Galatea Farm Settlement and was dissatisfied with the settlement terms and he could not be placated. Wilson Whineray, who by this time had become captain of the All Blacks, was doing his departmental year with the State Advances in Rotorua, was sent out with Glam to discuss the problem with the Galatea farmer. When Wilson Whineray was introduced to the farmer, the farmer stopped his grizzling. Perhaps he was overawed at having such a cult figure in his living room for nothing more was heard from him as far as I know.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROLL OF RURAL FIELD CADETS SELECTED

ON FIRST TWO YEARS OF COURSE

An interesting aside:

In 1965 Don Middleton was a pilot for Mount Cook Airlines and flew the Aussie Middleton cousins on to the Tasman Glacier, as shown in these photos:

The three people named below were the only ones who stayed with the department all their working lives.

Of the above Murray Mander, Don Middleton, Bill Wright and Kerry Mayo are still alive as at Christmas 2008.

Back Row: Left to Right

Murray Mander, Jack Graham, Bill Wright, Eugene Davies, Tom Molesworth, Reece Park

Front Row: Left to Right

Tom Lees, Peter Wheeler, Eric Gibson, R H Bevan, Murray Findlater, Don Middleton, Dick Western

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} p.NoSpacing, li.NoSpacing, div.NoSpacing {mso-style-name:"No Spacing"; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -->

The course as originally presented was:

YEAR-1 Sheep Station (18 months)

YEAR-2 Fat Lamb Farm (6 months)

YEAR-3 Three months at Lincoln College

Six months Dairy Farm

YEAR-4 Cropping Farm (12 months)

YEAR-5 Lincoln College (8 months lectures)

YEAR-6 Far Lamb Buyer and Ultimate Department (12 months)

YEAR-7 VFM Course at Lincoln (Final Year)

Any variance was caused by the intervention of the 1939-1944 global conflict. It will be noticed that only three of the initial intake of RFC spent their whole working life in the public service. Generally if one was ambitious it was difficult to climb the ladder because the system of promotion was tied to years of service. Bright boys or wiz kids had to wait until a person of longer service retired or died so that they could step into “empty shoes”.

Within a few years of graduation many of the graduates had left the Public Service and used their entrepreneurial ability elsewhere. To name a few, John Buxton went to Richmond Freezing Works and turned the company and the meat export business right around. Wilson Whineray went to Carter Holt (after Harvard University). Both these gentlemen were captains of the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Team. Athol Hutton, Head of Alliance Freezing Company; Rod Holland, Head of Canterbury Farmers; Tom Molesworth, Head of Taranaki Farmers; Glam Neiderer, Head of JE Watsons, Stock and Station Agency of Southland.

Personally, I would have liked to have been involved with water storage in the drought prone areas of the east coast of New Zealand, but I was ahead of my time. It would certainly have been easier than today, with the fish hooks attached to the Resource Management Act and environment concerns.

I used to say that Lincoln College taught me what grasses to grow, but I was never taught how to grow them without water.

I’ve learned: that my best friend and me can do nothing and have the best time.