Chapter 3 - William Raymond Wright

Photo above: Pine Grove - Bill Wright's childhood home.

I went to Waihao Downs Primary School for six years until 1936 and Kapua School for one year. I went on to Kapua because there was a disagreement between the Committee and the teacher's wife, who was the sister of Arnold Nordmeyer the Member of Parliament for Oamaru. She caused a split in the district and the children of the Schol Committe went to other schools

At the same time seven pupils also moved on to several different schools. My sister and I, Sally Ross, the two Millar girls and Dick Baynes went to Kapua. Trevor Turner went to Albury. Pat and I rode ponies five miles extra and went in the gig in the winter time. No doubt we felt pretty smart because Roy Tavendale's mother had taken him to and from school all his school days in the horse and gig.

I cannot remember my mother ever taking us to school, however my father was doing contract agricultural work which depended on fine weather so when it rained he was able to take us to school. The journey to school from our farm house started with a hill of about half a mile but it was not too steep and then we crossed a mile of undulating country. Then there was a dog leg in the road and generally we would cut across the corner of Mr. Briggs' paddock. The main paddock in the way was a Lucerne paddock and if the Lucerne was nearly ready for cutting it was long and wet, but we all wore boots - in fact I wore boots all my days at primary school. Then there was the best part of half a mile of fairly steep down hill section to the school. If we were late and on foot we had to run most of the way. But we certainly did not run up the first hill. No doubt this built some stamina into us. We certainly were not couch potatoes and this may have had some reflection on my athletic ability when I went to secondary school.

Although Waimate was a small community there were numerous social functions. The end of year school concert often had a mock court and at one of these Cecil Wright, who was well-known for working extended hours, was charged because the Wright children asked who that man who came for dinner on Sundays was. During the winter euchre and dance evenings were held in the local school. Occasionally a beer bottle was left behind in the school grounds and there was a scramble to get to school early the next day. The early birds collected the empty bottles which they traded in at the local store for a penny worth of aniseed balls or black balls or a penny bar of Nestlé's chocolate. These chocolate bars came with a coloured coupon which could be pasted into a booklet. I had a booklet of pheasants and another of Tutankhamen's tomb.

At the Arno hall, which was near the Kapua School, we had annual concerts at which the local Maori community from Morven performed. Local people, with the help of artists from further afield, performed in a Nigger Minstrel Show. One of these performers was Jack Dawson, who eventually set up a business in Cable Car Lane in Wellington. When I was in Wellington Jack charged me six pence for a hair cut.

Nigger Minstrel Show at Arno Hall about 1937
Cecil Wright and Rose Wright Right Hand side front row.

Another artist was Alan Shrimpton who was a gifted singer and mimic. Alan had ridden his motorbike into a railway engine and had suffered horrendous head injuries. The local GP, Dr Pitts, used a stainless steel plate to cover the missing pieces of his skull. Alan worked for John Foley at Studholme Station. The two Foley boys went to boarding school and when they came home from school they invariable asked Alan how their father was treating him. Alan would reply in a board Irish brogue and if John over heard him he would tell Alan to shut up as he did not know whether it was himself or Alan speaking.

Pupils at Waihao School - 1929

My first teacher was Jim McKay who stayed five years then transferred to Invercargill East. He was a good violinist and possessed many other talents, including drama, carpentry, surveying and architecture. His father surveyed the Heaphy Track. Jim McKay was a very practical man and while at Wahoo Downs' school he built a caravan. He had one child, Heather, and together with her parents she had endured the Murchison earthquake of 1929. Jim often told us of the shocking weather conditions on the West coast of New Zealand where he had lived all his life, except for attending Teachers' Training College for two years. Jim's father James McKay was also a surveyor. In 1860 McKay senior was appointed warden of the Collingwood Goldfields and there is a McKay Hut on the Heaphy Track. It is on record that James McKay favoured a road long the route of the Heaphy Track to give access from Golden Bay to the West Coast.

After Jim McKay was pressured out of the Education Service he developed a manufacturing business where he made the widely acclaimed McKay space heaters and, later, made Belmac safety frames for tractors.

The Wright Children
William (Bill) Patricia Euan Norma

At primary school there was not much in the way of sports. Initially we tried to play football but there were only 14 pupils at the school and certainly for the first three or four years I was too small to be included. In the fourth year my sister Norma had her leg broken whilst playing rugby and that was the end of the rugby. Don Taylor, who was the teacher at that time, was a very good hockey player and he introduced us to hockey. There were two other primary schools that had hockey teams so there was a little bit of inter-school competition.

After my time at primary school I went to secondary school in Waimate and had to travel by taxi. The headmaster was Malcolm Leadbetter who was the first New Zealander to be credited with running 100 yards in 10 seconds. He was quite keen on intelligent athletic activities at the school. Each week we went to Victoria Park for coaching in athletics. The park was on the other side of town and was an attractive venue with a grass surface. The headmaster impressed upon me that one did not run full out from the word go. One paced oneself and kept enough stamina to sprint to the finish.

The Houses at secondary school were named after previous Headmasters, Grant, Pitcaithly and Chisholm. I was in Grant House On the occasion of the House Sports I was running in the mile and as I ran passed the crowd of spectators, there was no grandstand as such. I was tucked in behind the field and I heard my name and that of Grant House being called, so I thumbed my nose at them because I thought that I knew what I was doing and did not need their advice. Round the back straight Leadbetter stopped the race, told us to get on and make a race of it and told me that he would see me in his study after assembly the following morning.

Sure enough, next morning Headmaster Leadbetter repeated his request that I see him in his study. I obeyed and he said "You know what you are here for?", and I said "No. I don't. You told us to make a race of it and I did, I won the race and I felt I had fulfilled any obligation I had so far as my House was concerned". He said "You do not give the raspberry to the crowd." I said "I haven't given any raspberries to anybody." He said "You leave that behind at the school across the road". He pointed to the primary school that was opposite. I said "I did not go to that school; I had attended the Waihao Downs' primary school. He said "Don't you know what I mean?" I replied "No, I to not understand about ‘giving the raspberry'". He said "It is this business of putting your thumb to your nose and playing the flute when you have not got a flute in your hands". "Oh" I said. He said "You won't forget this my boy", and he went into his little storeroom at the back of his study and brought out a bundle of canes. He laid into the back of his big armchair with these canes one by one, and then he said "These are not as good as the ones down in the staff room; I'll have to go down and get them." So he walked out and he left me standing there for forty minutes. He had actually gone and taken another lecture. He came back without a cane and just said "Get out." Of course, the fear of waiting for a mighty caning was sufficient to make me remember that incident right to this day. I ran second in the Cross Country and the following year I won it.

That was the end of my Secondary School days and I went to work in Wellington. I met up with other ex-Waimate High School pupils who belonged to the Kiwi Athletic Club and they persuaded me to go along and join them. More as a good will gesture, because I had no reputation as a runner or any other athletic ability, I did join up and occasionally ran with them, but without any great results.

I considered my early years very mundane after I had read other autobiographies, but on further thought I do believe that there are incidents that warrant recording.

My earliest recollections are of my father coming into the yard driving the Caterpillar 2-ton crawler tractor. Years later I was to find out that it was one of two that came to New Zealand at that time. The other one went to Seiferts at Shannon (more of that 40 years later). The Caterpillar 2-ton superseded the Holt 2-ton when Caterpillar bought the Holt Tractor Co., but there was very little difference in their appearance. This tractor had a caterpillar tread and could be turned around in its own length.

We lived at the end of a two-mile section of unnamed road. The yard was about an acre in area, mostly in grass. Fronting it were the farm buildings, the granary cum shearing stand for sheep, stables for six draught horses, the cow bail and complementary separator room. This shed had a lean-to on the south wall that provided cover for the car and tractor (when it was home) and was the workshop and night pen at shearing time. The milking shed was a six-bail walk through with a Zealandia milking plant fitted to six sets of cups.

At the north end of the yard was the fowl house and run and then the pig sty. There was an old man willow where the home kill (sheep, beast or pig) were hung before being cut up. There were no chillers or freezers so the bigger carcasses were shared with the neighbours. The pigs were salted or smoked and some of the beef was soaked in brine for corn beef.

In our time I do not think the milking plant was used as the four to six cows were hand milked and grazed on pasture that was below the standard that we now expect for cows and, at the weekends, we grazed them on the road side. Water, or the lack of it, was a problem particularly over the summer as the creek would run dry and the water had to come from a pond in the creek that never dried up, but was not very inviting from a cleanliness perspective. It was this meager water supply that precluded us from having a flush toilet which were a rarity in the country areas in the 1930's

Dad and Mum went to that farm in 1920 when they were 20 years old and newly married. They had paid 28 per acre for the 206 acres. I imagine things were pretty tough. Transport to Waimate would have been by motorbike and sidecar, though there was a general store selling groceries and a full range of farm merchandise at Waihao Downs, also the daily mail and newspaper were collected from there.

The storekeeper was Percy Goodwin who had two daughters and a son John. John went on to great things in the horticultural world. He worked for the landscaper who set out the grounds of Massey College near Palmerston North, planting many of the English trees that bound the Tiritea stream. He was the first horticultural graduate from Massey. He then worked for Palmerston North Parks and Reserves until he was called up for war service. On his return, John took the position of curator of Pukekura Park in New Plymouth which was in a sad state and he turned it around developing the Bowl of Brooklands as well as introducing the lights. He then involved himself with developing Pukeiti rhododendron gardens. He was patron of the Rhododendron Society of New Zealand until he died in 2006.

John worked for my father in the harvest field in the summer holidays from Massey. As a responsible employee he was given the job of driving the dray with one horse in the shafts and two horses in chains pulling from the front of the shafts. The dray was loaded with sheaves of either oats or wheat, picked up at random around the paddock and drawn up beside the stack where the horse driver (team master) would fork the sheaves on to the stack and the lowest rated worker (the crow) would place the sheaves in front of the stacker (usually my father) to place them in order to make a weather proof stack. Usually the empty dray was driven to the fartherest stooks and the load was built as the team moved towards the stack. Often the ground was steep, up to 40°slope with the stack on flat ground. One day they started loading going away from the stack, then with half a load of sheaves turned around to go back to the stack. The dray was top heavy with a narrow wheel base and the dray flipped over with the horse in the shafts kicking wildly because the harness would not allow him to get to his feet. One of the paddock men ran and called my Dad, who was probably out of sight and Dad called to blindfold the horse with a shirt. This calmed the horse allowing the harness to be undone. The dray was lying on its side as the spilled load prevented it from turning upside down. Even with the harness undone it was not easy for the horse to get to get back on his feet..

A few days later as the loaded dray approached the stack the shafter (the horse in the shafts) dropped to his knees and John wrapped his shirt around the horse's eyes assuring Dad that the horse would not get up or get entangled this time. Dad came and removed the shirt from over the eyes of the horse and agreed with John, as the horse was dead.

After the crop was cut with the reaper and binder we hired two men to stook the sheaves i.e. to stand them with the butt end on the ground usually eight to a group leaning against each other until the sheaves were dry to stack them. When the sheaves were dry we would have two men loading the sheaves onto the dray or on to the sledge on very steep ground - about 45º.

Dad would go to town on a Saturday night to engage two forkers for Monday. One particular time he asked Sonny (Peanut) Jacobs. The taxi driver, if he knew anybody. (Peanut was the father of Dinah Lee who was a very popular singer in later years.) Peanut did not know anybody off hand so Dad found two men elsewhere in the town and they had their own transport. These two men arrived out at the farm early on Monday morning to be followed by Peanut and two more men. Dad pointed out to Peanut that he did not ask him to get two men; he had only asked if he knew of two. Peanut insisted that Dad owed him ten shillings to which Dad countered by threatening to kick him off the farm if he did not go. That night Dad must have been retracing the events of the day in dreamtime, because he woke up to find Mum getting back into bed.

About 1928 Mick Connell came to the farm and drove the team and did general farm work while dad was contracting around the district, as far as 20 miles from home.

Mick Connell was an Irish immigrant, who, I gathered, was glad to get a job away from the strife in Northern Ireland. That strife I believe was between the Catholic and Protestant factions. Mick slept in a room attached to the gig shed near the house. He did not have any mod cons, no window even, just a sack over what used to be the window. Besides general farm work Mick drove the horses doing the top cultivation after Dad had done the ploughing. After Mick left us he went to Southland. He could not have been too hard done by as he kept in touch for many years.

About this time two new threshing mill contractors started, both having come from Northern Ireland. I recollect that Mick was a bit concerned about their presence. One was Dan Small who later, about 1940, bought what had been the Wright farm at Willowbridge. The other was Jim Urquhart who married Beth Kirk, the daughter of the Waihao Downs Presbyterian Minister, so I presume he was also a Presbyterian. Dan Small was a Roman Catholic.

There were quite a number of threshing mills operating in the district surrounding Waimate. Each gang consisted of a steam driven tractor engine wooden mill with broad, folding elevator, two huts on steel rimmed wheels and water joey (dray pulled by a single horse with 200 gallon galvanized tank with room for a few sacks of coal) that had to keep the water and coal up to the traction engine.

My mother's father had two traction engines and two wooden mills and a chaff cutter (for cutting chaff for the working horses in the off season) for threshing grain. Chaff cutting was a big business as there were few tractors and plenty of horses. Tractors were still scarce in 1940. My father fitted a pulley on the two-ton and was cutting chaff on 1930.

When Granfy sold the Willowbridge farm he left £1,700.00 on second mortgage. In 1935 the Mortgages and Leases Rehabilitation Act (MLR days) was enacted by Parliament and most of the second mortgages were wiped off. A very sore point with farmers forced off the farms by the Depression who could not make a sale without leaving a portion of the sale price on. There were many hardships as a result.

Another hard luck tale was when the Labour Party came to power in 1935 there was £30 million in the Farmers' Union Bank account, it had been put there to top up farmers' income in the poor years. But the skinflint hierarchy would not distribute it and the Labour Government commandeered it, set up the Housing Corporation and started building State Houses. From a housing point of view an excellent idea (ask James Fletcher) but no satisfaction to the farming community.

When dad went on his contracting excursions, he had the tractor on the front, then the roller with the harrows on top, the tandem Boothmac discs (on carrier wheels), then the four furrows Ransome plough (the plough and the tractor are both in the Waimate museum). Then a Ransome cultivator (grabber) was added.

The P & D Duncan 15 coulter drill was another implement that had to be used when the cultivation was completed. In the 1930's we had a Buick car cut down to the equivalent of a half-ton truck to tow it to where it was needed. To cut the oats and wheat a drawbar was fitted and this allowed the tractor to be attached to the binder or reaper as it was often called. A man still had to sit on the binder to control how high the crop was cut, how long the sheaves were and how far the fans were involved in pulling the cut crop onto the platform. When the wheat was ripe the horse drawn binder had the pole taken out and a draw bar fitted.

That reaper and binder with a six foot cut was replaced in 1944 with a purpose built binder with an eight foot cut. This coincided with better, taller bulkier crops which meant we had to add an extension to the rear of the platform, called a hustler, to ensure the larger and longer straw was carried up to the tying mechanism. The sheaves were bound into bundles of about 15kg and were stood up (stooked) and leant against each other to "season" or dry out until they were ready to be stacked or threshed by one of the threshing mill contractors. Usually all the down country wheat was threshed first.

After the tractor came in September, Dad must have started contracting, but it was not long before there was a slump in the economy and some of dad's clients became tardy with their payments resulting in the current account with Dalgety's running above the sum agreed upon. The result was that Dalgety's manager Louis Gunn, acting under direction from head office in London, stated that they had funds badly invested in New Zealand and intended to reduce the obligation. The local management made some irrational decisions, for instance they persuaded Cyril Verity to plant a bigger area in mangels than his stock could eat, and then employed otherwise unemployable men to hoe them, with Cyril footing the bill. Most of the crop rotted as the district farmers had no money no matter how badly they wanted them.

At that time the Dalgety account was about £700 in debit and when Mum's inheritance from her father's estate came to hand Dalgety's thought they should have that but my parents agreed not to give it to them, so Dalgety's set about selling them up. The horses were paraded in the sheep yards and sold, then the horse drawn implements were sold and the auctioneers and the prospective purchasers were moving onto the two-ton tractor and the associated implements with all eagerness, as no tractor had been sold at auction prior to this, but then the king hit. Dad put his hands in the air and said they could all go home as proceeds had cleared the account and he did not owe Dalgety's anything. From then on the farm account was run through Pyne Gould Guiness in my mother's name a/c Mrs. R Wright. It was years before I understood the significance of that. PGG acted as a bank and Dad used an order book as opposed to a bank cheque book and I believe that persisted for the rest of his life. Pynes as we got to know them ran a grocery shop as well as full farm hardware, fuel bowsers, stock agency and a Trust department and proved to be very friendly and client focused.

Most of the cultivation was to grow extra feed for the sheep to tide them over between autumn growth and spring growth. The winter could be very severe often with spells of several days of heavy frosts, and also up to 18 inches of snow at which time there was no available grass.

Oats were grown to feed the draught horses that did of the cultivation, or often only the lighter cultivation after dad did the ploughing and the first cut with the discs. In that climate the frosts broke down the clods and the horses had an easier job in the Spring to do the last cut with the discs, then harrow, before sowing the seed, be it turnips, swedes, oats for chaff, or wheat for a cash crop.

Most of the local farmers grew one or two acres of mangels (mangolds) which were lifted from the paddock and stored under cover, usually straw, and were fed out when the grass was covered by heavy frost or by snow. Mangolds were superseded when hay baling was introduced and Chou moellier (a tall brassica) was added to the crop mix.

To get to the clients the tractor was driven on the road, it had steel cleated tracks but there were no tar sealed roads so no damage was done, except the extra wear on the cleats.

Dad's district covered 12 miles to the east, 10 miles to the west but only about four miles wide because of the Hunter Hills to the north and the Waitaki River to the south. He had a reputation for working long hours. He said there were enough hours of daylight and he did not need lights on the tractor. He kept a meticulous diary and the hours on the tractor were faithfully recorded. He claimed he worked the tractor for 2,000 hours per year besides doing his share of farm work on the home farm. Such was the pressure to satisfy his clients the first invoices after getting the two-ton were written on Boxing Day 1928. That invoice book should be in the Waimate Museum. I lent it to a Kevin Cromie as his grandfather featured regularly in it.

My first paid job off my parent's farm was fleecoing at Bill Allen's farm which was about two miles north of Pinegrove. I walked across country and passed "pigeon rock" which is a limestone outcrop about 30 metres high standing out from a limestone bluff shaped like a giant sea shell and had pigeon nest holes around it. It is a geological outcrop which deserves publicity.

I was 12 years old when I first fleecoed for two shearers. That is, picked up the newly shorn fleece, swept the board, skirted the fleece, i.e., took the stained wool from the edge of the spread out fleece, then rolled the fleece or put it in the press or a bin (slated side frame) adjacent to the press. If the shearer was catching a sheep before I had picked up the fleece he would call "Woolaway" and the other shearer might call "tar". I would say "That's alright", but he was calling for the Stockholm tar which was used to dress cut wounds. When the farmer came down to the shed he helped me press the wool, probably four bales a day.

The shearers were very rough and they probably shore only 200 sheep a day. They were not very experienced and certainly pre-Godfrey Bowen days. Godfrey and his brother Ivan revolutionized shearing by giving demonstrations and organizing tuition through Wool Board Instruction Schools throughout New Zealand and overseas in wool producing countries. The work was made easier and the quality of the fleeces better by eliminating second cuts and breaking the fleece apart so that the different types of wool did not get mixed up.

The farmer was Bill Allan, not a very energetic or good farmer. His pastures were infested with yarrow, a rhizome plant, with low productivity and a prolific seeder. The land was difficult to cultivate with horse drawn implements, but Bill insisted on growing wheat with the yarrow which made it very palatable to sheep. Yarrow seed was always added to seed mixes for over sowing bush burns. It was common knowledge that Bill got more for the yarrow seed than he did for the wheat that was bagged off the mill.

Despite having two sons Bill sold out to Don Hulston who had been President of the Students' Association at Lincoln College during my time there. Before Don got a tractor I did some cultivation work for him. We used to grub up the yarrow with the stiff tined cultivator and the sheep ate the roots.

The north boundary of the farm was the Waihao River and adjacent to the Black Hole, notorious for fatalities. In the early days a boy crashed through the ice and drowned. In my time I was never aware of ice forming on the river. Then about 1950 two intellectually handicapped children under care, drowned there. There was a big rock hanging out over a deep pool and the problem may have been diverse currents adjacent to the rock. I never swam there, preferring to watch the others.

Don Hulston remained a bachelor and on the sale of his farm he bequeathed the proceeds to Lincoln College to be used for post graduate research. It was a substantial amount, in excess of half a million dollars.

In our small district of Waihao Forks we had quite a group of ex Lincoln College students
Colin Cameron. Don Scott Don Hulston
Snow Trengrove Bill Wright Mark Leslie

In the 4th form - 2nd year at High School I was put in charge of the milk distribution. I had to see that the milk crates containing half pint bottles of full cream, pasteurized milk were distributed to the girls' and boys' playgrounds. The milk was free and about half of the pupils availed themselves of this. I was also the bell boy and had to ring the bell for the start and end of each school day as well as the end of each teaching period.

For Public Service Entrance I had to sit five approved subjects. I thought I had made a hash of the woodwork paper because it was purely practical with no written questions. When I started at secondary school the class master probably never expected me to complete three years at secondary school so a School Certificate year was not planned for.

In my first term report I obtained one first place in arithmetic and in the 3rd term of my second year I received four first places, a second and a fourth place but only four of the subjects were eligible for School Certificate marks so I took woodwork as a School Certificate subject.

I was very thin as a child and after my second year at secondary school where I sat and passed the Public Service Entrance, I was offered a position in the Public Service in Wellington. My father advised me to take it as he doubted that I would ever be strong enough to work on a farm.

Most of the local school students who were accepted for the Public Service were drafted to the Railways or Post Office locally, or in Wellington. I can only assume that my high class marks got me posted to the Head Office of the Valuation Department in Wellington.

Fortunately I had gone with a school group to the Centennial Exhibition in Wellington in January 1940 otherwise I would have been disorientated for the attendance to the Public Service Commissioner in March. The sleeping arrangements in the Winter Show Building and eating arrangements at the Newtown Primary School were a little overwhelming to a country bumpkin, though I did manage to cope with the dodgems and met some friendly female students from Taumaranui High School.

I reported to the Public Service Commission on 25 March, 1940. The Public Service Commission's field officer took me to the Valuation Department on the second floor of the Government Life building on Customhouse Quay, facing the waterfront. This was a surprise as I thought the Public Service was the Post Office and the Railways. This was the head office of the Valuation Department and there was a staff of 26, which included only one valuer - Jim Mackie. Even at that stage I had no aspirations to be a valuer

I was 15 years and 4 months old and had only the clothes I stood up in plus a pair of pyjamas. No accommodation had been arranged for me and through the Y.M.C.A. I was referred to 14 Tinakori Road, a boarding house with a mix of humanity. None of whom I wished to become too friendly with. There were ship jumpers, I suspect both male and female. There were two brothers who lost a brother to the marksmanship of Stan Graham on the West Coast. I could not leave there util I gave a week's notice and as I did nopt have any money I stayed tweo weeks. The Tinakori house was eventually demolished and replac ed by a high rise apartment block. Herbie Casselberg retired to this building after leaving the State Advances.

When I moved to 14 Wright Street off the top end of Taranaki Street I could walk to work in the Valuation Department in the Government Life building, or run if it was raining. There was no spare money for trams. I had 7s 6d left, after paying my board. I wanted a new pair of trousers costing 10shillings, so I tried to hold back paying the full amount but the landlady said I should give her 5shillings extra that week and take 5shillings out of next week's pay because what I did not pay this week would be twice as hard next week. At Wright Street I had my meals with the family of Mrs. Dillon but slept in a tiny room with outside access at No.16. The washing and bathing facilities were at No.14, not a very convenient or sociable set up, but the arrangement sufficed for a few weeks.

Then I met Barry Haining from Horopito and Louis Sands from Roxburgh both public servants and two year older than me. They earned more than me and were able to socialize more. Both had girl friends and went to skating and dancing classes. When they both developed mumps and I thought it was something you caught like VD. When I saw how they suffered and I didn't I was glad that I was not socializing with the opposite sex.

The land lady did not understand my reservation so she introduced me to her vivacious red-haired niece. This young lady was worldlier than me and she contrived to get us into situations where we could have passion a plenty, I made sure that we were always fully clothed but that did not stop me getting a pain in my genitals which Barry and Louis diagnosed as "Irish Toothache". She (and ‘she' shall remain nameless) was often in my compass over the ensuing years, but we remained just a good friends. I am now given to understand that both sexes carry safety equipment or the female sex has access to the pill - morning after if necessary.

Barry and Louis were boarding at 21 Torrens Terrace and I moved in there with them. Torrens Terrace was much nearer to my work then Wright Street and almost all the way under shop verandahs. We lived three to a room so I was much more aware of the pain of their mumps. It was at Torrens Terrace that the taxi driver Bert boarded with his sister-in-law. I was not aware of this arrangement until years later when I met up with Barry again.

Bert had a black 1939 Nash, No.30 in the Wellington Taxi fleet, and I used to wash and polish his car on a Saturday and I got 5/- for that which almost made me a millionaire in my eyes. Bert had a heart condition - surely he was taking a rest with his living (or was it loving) arrangements. He regularly took me with him at the weekends and we would wait at the Railway Station and line up the passengers carrying big bags, particularly priests as they often had to negotiate many steps to get to the seminary above Oriental Bay.

While I worked in Wellington I went down to the port as a fleet of troop ships had come in to take army personnel to the war zone in the Middle East. One of these ships was the four-funnelled Aquitania and the troops (5,500 of them) and been embarked but the ships had not sailed. The soldiers were known as the Eigth Reinforcements and after I recognized some Waimate soldiers they told me my brother Euan was onboard. Euan camer to the rail which was high over Aotea Quay. We could not converse but it gave me some satisfaction to be able to wave goodbye.

Euan served in the tank recovery unit throughout Egypt and Italy. After hostilitites ended he worked with the War Graves Commission and married an Italian girl. They came out to New Zealand and initially lived with our parents at Pinegrove. Isabelle was not happy even though her family had farming interests, in her view only peasants lived on farms.

It was not a very satisfactory situation living with my parents as I was to find out later. Isabelle persuaded Euan to move into the Royal Hotel in Waimate and after spending a year in New Zealand they returned to Italy where Euan worked for thre Trieste Power Board translating the contract documents for Delefar Cogarfa the company which built the Rangipo Power Scheme.

I was seldom side tracked by sport, though I did run with the Kiwi Amateur Athletic Club, but I was not good enough to get any stimulation out of regular attendance. The emphasis at Kiwi was on short distance races and I could not hold my own with the sprinters. It was a few years later that I realized that I was a middle distance runner and some years after that I realized I was blessed or cursed with slow twitch muscles and that many of the darker races have fast twitch muscles which enable them to sprint and jump

It soon became obvious that with only Public Service Entrance that the salary cap would be very low, so to overcome that I had to study for School Certificate which meant going to Night School to study French and the boss allowed me to go to a private French tutor (Mrs Finlayson) one hour a week. I was not a very good French student and was pleased when another door opened if the form of applications being called for the Rural Field Cadets which required College graduates to be trained to help with the rehabilitation of returned soldiers onto farms..Male applicants were expected to have some rural interests and the scheme involved work culminating in graduating from an agricultural college. Although I did not have School Certyificate I was accepted.

The initial interview was with the Public Service Commissioner. Mr. Sam Barnett. I do not think he was a relative though my paternal grandmother was a Barnett. After the interview I was referred to Herbert Caselberg, the supervising valuer for the State Advances Corporation. He had been credited with being the mover and shaker that set up the Rural Field Cadet Scheme. I was accepted and the two gentlemen were interested in my activities in the school holidays - hoeing mangolds, fleecoing, fruit picking in Central Otago, as well as school duties, bell boy, milk prefect and NCO training in the school cadets.

SNOW TIME

On 15th July 1945 we were heading red clover on John Cromie's farm, it was a windy day and as we traversed the windy side of the paddock the wind blew the newly cut seed-laden heads off the cutter bar, but we got a bag of seed per round at £150 per bag. John said that we were losing too much seed to the wind. My father wanted to work only three sides of the paddock, but the wind got stronger so work stopped. The wind dropped at midnight and Mother Nature dropped 18 inches of snow on the district.

Next day the snow presented another problem. We had to get feed to the sheep. The mangles were still in the highest paddock of the farm. The tractor and wagon were at the low point. When we tried to take the wagon up the hill the tracks of the tractor filled with compacted snow and the outfit tobogganed down the hill and we were lucky it did not capsize.

We gave up but planned to go next day to take a long route on the road. Fortunately that night we had a strong north-west wind that blew all the snow off the north and west of the hills so the grass was exposed for the sheep. The snow was eight feet deep on the offside of the hills. If there had been a frost the snow would not have cleared. As it was the drifts lasted for six weeks.

There have been heavy falls of snow since them, but not while I have been involved.

THE RICHARDS' FAMILY

The Richards family farmed the Waihao Downs homestead farm for many years for two different periods. In the 1920's the daughter Gertie, a tom boy, was under the new Model T Ford looking at the underside of the pedal attachment trying to work out how one could get reverse and forward out of the same pedal.

She heard the garden gate shut and saw the spatted ankles of the newly appointed Anglican vicar. In her haste to get to her feet she bumped her head on the running board exclaiming something like "Jesus Christ" or "Good God" to which the vicar replied "No, it is the Reverend Julius one of his disciples".

He went on to become Bishop Julius and a university girls' student hoste wasl named after him. I met up with Heather McKay who was a resident there in 1947 but my courting was severely curtailed by being short of funds, but I enjoyed her company.

ATHLETICS
Running

My athletic ability blossomed while I was at Lincoln College. My first recorded success was in the Cross Country in 1944. Entries were invited and of the early entrants the popular choice to win was Ray Lyons (or Snow Lyons as I knew him)
I said if I could not beat him I would go "he", so I entered. I did win, but having not done any serious training I was like a cripple for several days afterwards.

I was back at Lincoln in 1946 and I won the Cross Country, the 800 yards and one mile, setting a new record time for the 800 yards. The previous record time had been set by Pat Boot who, subsequently, represented New Zealand at the Empire Games.

In 1947 I was at Canterbury University. There I won the Cross Country as well as the 800 yards and the mile. I was second in the Llewellyn Cup, which I won the following year (see photo at left). I also ran the Dauvauchelle to Akaroa leg of the Takahe to Akaroa Canterbury AA Centre Relay Race, which we won for Canterbury University.

In 1948 I was back in residence at Lincoln and repeated the achievements of the previous year, winning five cups and a couple of trophies, as well as setting a new time for the mile - as shown in the photo at right.

In 1949 I ran for Victoria University, Wellington. Work interfered with training as I was establishing the statistical bureau for the Lands and Survey Department which entailed me travelling all over New Zealand. When possible I did work out on the Kelburn Track with Dave Batten, the New Zealand 100 yard champion, but my times did not improve. I was selected to go to Australia with the Victoria University athletic team but declined as I was below my best.

In 1947 and 1948 I went with five other Canterbury University students to Dunedin to run in and win the Lovelock Relay. The team of six had each to run a mile.

Happy days, but now only a distant memory. How I wish for some of that mobility now so I could throw the walking stick away!

Swimming

In 1986 Gregory was eligible for the Special Olympics because of his intellectual handicap. Greg's coach left the district so I took him to the Levin Aquatic Centre. He was self motivated and would swim up to 120 25 metre lengths. I became bored with the waiting about so I got into the pool, which was usually heated to 29ºC, and started to do a few lengths breast stroke, but soon progressed to back stroke.

I was not very fast as my best time for 25 metres was 34 seconds. Greg's time was 28 seconds. However, we were both eligible to swim with the Masters, often in the same race at the same venue. I have won nine gold medals by virtue of the fact that I was the only one in my age group in the race.

I consider myself to be the slowest back stroke swimmer in the world. At the World Championships in Christchurch in 1998 I could not beat the over 90 year olds!

I've Learned:
That our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.