Chapter 11 - The Twilight Years

When we shifted from Te Horo to Waitotara we had a TK Bedford five ton truck and we had to shift five tractors, all hay making gear, all the potato planting and harvesting gear, the cultivation equipment, some railway iron and timber and the tools, and something like 800 bales of hay. There were 24 trips, but it all turned to custard and I ended up with Heathewho was r at Te Horo Beach. Although we had bought the farm at Waitotara Heather was still working at Kimberley Health Centre. I took stock of my situation and considered what I was going to do as I had lost my Valuers’ Registration, did not have a farm, did not own any plant but I still had a Nissan Ute and my good range of fencing tools and was still capable of physical work. Greg and I came back to Te Horo and I went looking for work and met Arthur Williams.

Arthur Williams, a business tycoon from Wellington, had bought a 137 acre farm right next to the Otaki Maori Racing Club and talk was that he was going to develop a horse rearing and training establishment. Out of curiosity I visited him one day and he showed me what they were doing and it looked like an interesting operation but I had no aspirations for doing any more. A couple of days later he rang me and asked if I was going to work and so I went to see him and as it turned out the project manager Jack King from Feilding had pulled out of the job and Arthur asked me if I would be the Project Manager.

The owner of Ashford Park said "Dump it":

But it became the frame for the shed on our Pretoria Road block:

Photo at left: Putting the finishing touches at Ashford Park - topping the entrance pillars. Bill is on the tractor.

There was a lot of activity establishing one of the classiest equine facilities in New Zealand. Three chalet cottages for the staff were built. More accommodation was to be built consisting of 24 single rooms for single staff. A Y-shaped wing to stable the race horses, the veterinary clinic and a stallion barn with four stallion boxes. There was an implement shed. A complete irrigation system and ring road serving all the buildings. There was a swimming pool for the horses; a bio-gas plant to utilize the soiled straw out of the stables and an administration block. There was a near new 2,000 sq.ft. farm homestead near the Te Roto Street entrance.

I said that I would take the position of Project Manager at a salary of $25,000 a year, which was quite a help. I was 60 years of age and I thought that at 65 I would be getting a pension. I did not know if the job would spin out that long, which it did as it took 18 months to build Ashford Park. At one time I was glibly saying that we spent 14 million dollars in 14 months. I think that could be an understatement as Arthur Williams’ obituary said that the setting up of Ashford Park cost him 30 million dollars but that figure could have included the cost of the horses,

Arthur went overseas to the USA when the Kentucky stud was being auctioned. The race horse Man-O-War is buried there. Man-O-War is looked upon as being the foundation sire of a large proportion of the race horses in this world. Arthur went to look at the stud in the morning and bought it at auction in the afternoon. Before he went to the States he bought 17 acres next to the stallion paddocks at Otaki it had been a kiwi fruit orchard that had gone belly up. . We took possession of it while Arthur was in America and I planned a subdivision for the horse paddocks and next to the stallion paddocks we had to provide a double fence between the newly purchased property and the stallions. The other fences in the stallion paddocks were 6ft high, but the boundary fence was only 1.2 metres high, but they had put poly rods around with a hot wire above that to stop the horses reaching through to the plantation on the newly acquired block.

The subdivision entailed 600 posts which I ordered and they were delivered to the farm. I was arranging the fencing when Arthur came back and asked who had ordered the posts. His son said that I had. Arthur said, send them back and this was done. The new paddock was mowed and cleared and a good crop of grass came through. About 50 mares were put on to that block and one of the mares backed up against the fence to the stallion paddock and a stallion endeavoured to mate with her. Unfortunately it was in line with one of the plastic poly rods which were sticking up over the top of the posts and the poly rod went right through the brisket, through the horse’s heart killing him instantly. It was a two million dollar horse that Arthur had hoped would be the making of Ashford Park and it appeared to make him lose interest in the place. He also had had a set back in his health whilst he was overseas.

While overseas Arthur had arranged to buy 47 quality brood mares from England and France. He sent staff over to bring the horses back and they arrived three to six months after his trip as the mares had to have the foals taken off them. By this time he had bought an agistment farm on McDonald Road 5 miles east out of Levin and I was sent to manage it which I did for three years. The 47 mares were sent to this property but it was more of a sheep farm. About 40 acres were suitable for running mares and another 200 acres were good sheep country. Some manuka scrub was on it, but by and large it was fairly easy, rolling country with tomos, which are underground water courses. The mares were turned out on the hill and two of them went missing. It was sometime before we found out where. Both of the mares had gone down a tomo and it was not until the bodies disintegrated and the effluent from the decaying bodies drained out of the bottom of the tomos that we realized what had happened.

Heather, Gregory and I moved into the 50 years old farm dwelling where I upgraded the kitchen and dining area with fittings that fell off the back of a truck (actually given to me by an acquaintance who renovated kitchens). Arthur owned the Terrace Regency Hotel in Wellington and when the carpet in the hotel was replaced some of the old carpet was brought up to McDonald Road and I had it laid so we finished up with quite a comfortable home. Heather went on working at Kimberley Hospital and Greg cycled into Levin to work at Te Whanau.

When Arthur Williams took over the farm on McDonald Road we had to sell 500 ewes and David Challis who was farming over the south boundary bought 250 of them. He pleaded innocence when I admonished him, saying he would put an earmark in them. I insisted that we check the boundary fence as soon as possible but as far as I remember it was left to me to make the fence sheep proof because if any sheep got through the fence Challis would consider it in order to ear mark them on the presumption he had missed them when he ear marked the original purchase.

Sir Arthur sold the farm to Ross Crowe and I stayed on as farm manager while Doug Easton leased it and ran bulls. It was not a full time job and I was doing other work such as helping David Cairns get established on Wallace Road where I was grazing sheep prior to tree planting.

One day on the way around to David’s I saw there were four big Friesian bulls behind an electric fence close to the right-of-way access to David’s house They looked like Doug’s bulls but they disappeared before Doug had a chance to look at them. I contacted Tom McDermott, the closest carrier, and he said Nigel wanted him to shift four bulls at short notice but Tom was too busy. Tom said Nigel wanted them to go to Hawera whereas his stock usually went to Riverlands at Bulls. Tom said Nigel had said if he would not shift the bulls that day he would not get any more assignments. They were shifted before Doug got to check them but I found the boundary gate which was never used had been prized open and left open.

Nigel moved his farming operation around to Gladstone Road where he leased Hamish Hancock’s land. Shortly afterwards I saw Nigel at the Levin A.P. & I. Show and asked if he was still in the bull grazing business. He got up and left me cold and on my own (but oh, the body language)

A long term client of my valuation business, David Cairns, had purchased 60 acres at the end of Emerald Hills Road, a country lane off Wallace loop Road, with the intention of putting a home on the lower slope and planting the rest in trees, a variety on the lower slopes around the house and pines on the balance that ran right to the top of the hill. David owned and actively ran Te Whanau, a Rest Home and Elderly Care Centre in Levin with 130 patients at various sites. It was quite stressful and was taking it toll on David to the point that he had to have a heart transplant to survive. Meanwhile he had bought an old church from the corner of Stuckey Street and Reeve Street in Levin with the intention of moving it to Emerald Hills Road. Then the bomb shell – he told me to organize shifting it, he did not want anything to do with it.

That meant hiring a contractor to provide access across country from Wallace Road to the house site which had to be carved out of the side of the hill and above the yet to be formed lake. Fortunately the building removal firm were good operators with good gear so the journey across undulating farm land was no trouble and towing the transporter backwards up the access to the house site did not present any problems. The church was quite big but it was shifted in one piece, but the peak of the gable had to be removed because of the height. It was this height that allowed it to be refurbished as a mighty dwelling with workshop and storage underneath. All the living and service areas on the on the ground floor and six bedrooms up stairs were lined out with macrocarpa or rimu timber. No preservatised timber was used.

Just as we could not get the building up the right of way it meant that it would not be possible to get the logs out when the trees that were to be planted were ready for felling. This meant buying 300 acres of land around the top of the hill to join up the original purchase with direct access onto the northern end of Wallace Loop Road. On this area there was a mixture of native bush, scattered scrub, clear grass land and patches of gorse, so it was important that there was a semblance of grass control until the time was right to plant trees. Predominantly pines were planted, although there was also a mixture of Tasmanian black woods, eucalypts, macrocarpas and poplar on the lower slopes.

Above: Old church on its way to Emerald Hills

David had neither the will nor the ability to farm the necessary sheep, so I purchased 113 top Perendale ewes and put them on his property and they did very well. Yards were built on the high point at the northern end of the block but the sheep were putting pressure on Mark Rolston’s boundary at the top of the hill where the salt laden winds were causing the wires to rust and the sheep were getting through. It was not practical to get them back without the co-operation of the neighbour so I decided to cut my losses and shift the sheep up to Pretoria Road near Shannon where David had bought a 700 acre block of land with the intention of carrying out a subdivision. There would be grazing available until the trees were planted. I only mustered 98 ewes and shifted them to Shannon. This left me at least 15 ewes short with no sign of any dead stock.

Some days later as I was coming back from Shannon, I was mulling over the discrepancy of 15 ewes, so I called in at the Rolston’s to ask Mark if he could throw any light on where the missing sheep might be. There was a red Ute near the back door with about 12 lambs on it. Wendy, Mark’s wife, said Mark was baling straw. As I left I passed the Ute and amongst the lambs on it I saw one with my earmark. I hoped they might be going to deliver them to our place but as I went down the road I thought that was too good to be true so I went back but the Ute had gone. Wendy told me that it was David Challis’ Ute and that he was farming near Woodville having left the property that was next to the McDonald Road farm of Arthur Williams.

I got David Challis’ telephone number and rang next morning to be told that he was milking, so I asked the person to whom I was speaking, to ask David to check the earmarks of the lambs he had brought home the previous day. I had not had a call by 9 o’clock so on the way up to Shannon I went up Potts Road where Mark Ralston was talking to Bruce Mitchell by their respective Utes. I greeted Mark and asked how he was and he replied in a belligerent tone “alright until you came up the fucking road.” It was obvious to me that David Challis had rung him instead of me. I then turned about and, as I had my good dog with me, I drove over to Woodville, found out where Challis lived, and went to his house and knocked on the door. He answered the door and wanted to know what I was doing there. I said I had come to check the sheep he had got off Mark. He said that they were all over the farm and he was too busy (he was nursing a young child) so I told him I had my dog with me and it would be no problem. He raised his voice and told me to keep off his farm. So I left and went down to the Police Station, but no one was on duty.

I came home vowing that I would write the story up and include it with the stories of Stock Thieves that I have known which I intended to write one day. Well, this is the day and you will get the opportunity to refute it or put the matter right before I publish it. I have sent a copy of this page to David Challis but he has not acknowledged it.

When Ashford Park was finished we moved to McDonald Road where I ran an agistment farm where we carried up to 100 mares, 36 yearling horses and 700 sheep

FOREST GLEN

While David Cairns was in Greenlane Hospital in Auckland waiting for a new heart, he requested me to obtain an option on Mexted’s 700 acres at Shannon as a prospective forestry subdivision project with the intention of providing 15 acre blocks for forestry to enable individual investors to be sole owners.

After David received a new heart, he returned to Levin and he had to take life very quietly and he was closely monitored for rejection of his heart, but he was still keen to go on with developing the forestry block at Shannon. He envisaged that the sections would be approximately 15 to 50 acres each so that individual people could buy them as an investment, rather than the full scale investments groups that were being set up by various people – Roger Dickie and Progressive Enterprises.

He asked me to implement the development of it. It required providing access to it and the formation of roads that would enable the purchasers to get to their individual blocks and plant the trees. Mind you there was no compulsion to plant trees but the farm was deteriorating to gorse and the obvious answer to that was to plant trees. It was a boom time for the planting of trees, log prices were good.

On the strength of Graham Bagrie's co-operation and work in developing Ashford Park, I asked him if he would do the roading and he agreed to . We asked that it should be done promptly, but he did not respond to that and time went on, actually a whole year went by and no work was done. This reflected badly in the realization on the sale of the sections and when we did get the roading through the heat had gone out of the forestry investment. David was staring a loss in the eyes and further more the Council in their planning required that we tar seal a kilometre of road before we got to the property and another kilometre of road in the property. That had not been our intention; we wanted to just put in logging roads and then in due course perhaps, get them tar sealed. But Council requirement added another $250,000 to our development costs.

When I first approached Bagrie to do the work I said that there would be an initial holdup with paying. We would be able to pay perhaps half the original cost that was of his contracting equipment, but I suggested that we offer him a section in the subdivision to pay the balance he agreed to this. There were 80 acres of easy undulating country at the south-east corner that would have been ideal as a dairy run-off and it was presumed that Bagrie would buy that as he had a dairy farm out on the sand country and this was drought free country and too good for pine trees but in the end that is what happened to it.

David paid half the original contracting account and still thought that Bagley would accept a section or sections for the balance. He did not do so and sued David through the Courts to get the balance paid. The Court upheld our contention that the boom in forestry development had passed and because of Bagrie’s reluctance to complete the roading we lost at least 12 months and the heat had gone out of the forestry investing.

David had sold out of Te Whanua by this time and he expressed a desire to help Gregory and offered him a section at a discount. Gregory had saved up some money out of his wages and we were able to buy a section fronting onto the existing road and when the neighbouring section was slow to sell we negotiated that too and were able to buy two sections at $85,000. The asking price had been $50,000 each so we got a bonus there. I had been supervising the roading and actually taken down fences off our old farm at Heights Road and re-erected them on the roadside of the forestry subdivision. I was not paid for a lot of the work I did so the bonus on the purchase price of the two sections was actually a balance of work for land. I viewed my involvement as occupational therapy.

Not all of what I call “Gregory’s Block” was planted in trees as the 220,000 volt lines from Mangahoe Power Station to Paraparaumu crossed the north corner leaving three acres of grass land under without trees. I would have liked to establish a small animal cemetery there, but in the end I ran out of steam and gave up trying to subdivide the block into 7 lifestyle sections.

The Council agreed that we could subdivide in to 24 sections, but the surveyor subdivided the front terrace country in four 12 acre sections, these 50 acres had been leased by a neighbouring dairy farmer and we were sure he would want to retain possession of it. He did buy Lot 1 but he had to pay above its farming worth because having developed the land to suit smaller sections we had to pay roading and fencing costs. Surveyor Truebridge departed from common sense on a number of times regarding road lines and subdivision lines which added to the costs.

The block had about 30% gorse infestation and we aerial top sprayed with Desiccant prior to burning. We obtained a permit from the District Council to burn and made the necessary arrangements and advised the neighbours and had two extra staff to set the fires. An NAC pilot called the Fire Service advising them of a fire on our property at Pretoria Road and the Fire Service called the Shannon Fire brigade and Shannon police. The police came up and I showed them the permit and asked them to advise the Shannon Fire Brigade, which I could hear going up to Mangaore village where, I knew, they had access to pipe water from the power station. The policeman did not do as I asked and within about 30 minutes a Taupo based helicopter with a monsoon bucket arrived and proceeded to pour 16 buckets of water over the burning gorse and put the fires out. This spoiled what would have been an effective environment for the planting of tree seedlings. We were invoiced the cost of the helicopter, the staff and brigade services but refused to pay and did not ever pay.

I believe this attitude on our part was reflected in any dealings that Cairns and I had with the Council. Outsiders believed that we must have had a vendetta against us when made aware of some of the rulings against any plans that we put forward.

GRAPES

Between 1999/2001 I was involved with the development of Gregory’s forest block. As the pruning got higher I was unable to undertake the pruning and hired contractors to do the pruning and thinning, with the aim of 400 stems a hectare. At the time David Cairns had sold the balance of the forestry development and had made contact with Mel Singh, a speculator based in Auckland, who was keen for David to get into another development exercise.

Early in 2003 I was approached by Mel Singh. Mr. Singh was based in Auckland and considered himself to be an entrepreneur with wide ranging abilities. I was asked by letter dated 27 April 2003, to seek land suitable for grapes in the Horowhenua. As the consensus of local opinion was that there was the likelihood of a surplus of grapes not only New Zealand wide, but world wide, I questioned the wisdom of extending the area already in grapes. I was assured that his family in India owned supermarkets and was expanding their business and would be able to sell the entire product from 1,000 hectares, particularly if it were pinot noir.

Mr. Singh undertook to pay me $3,000 for each property that he eventually bought, I asked for .5 per cent of the purchase price. He took David Cairns into his company Greenlane Securities, to give himself some credibility and to give me a sounding board. As I was not permanently employed I under took the assignment.

Using my wide knowledge of the district and people I had options on nine properties that would give 1,000 ha. of grape land. Singh did send a number of cheques for $10 to secure properties at up to $5,000,000, but the vendors were insulted and did not cash the cheques. Singh personally engaged Gibbs Consortium of Te Horo to undertake soil and water testing and a development proposal for Spillers property at Manakau.

The Gibbs Group has a very high reputation in the viticulture business both in New Zealand and overseas. When Singh refused to reimburse them for the cost of soil testing the alarm bells began to ring and in spite of threats of legal action the account was never paid. I then asked for a progress payment, eventually receiving $1,200 from David Cairns.

On the strength of my approach the Bishop family sold their Ohau property to a group of local investors who have developed the property and have at least 50 ha in grapes.

The first year vintage from Bishop's Vineyard have received a first prize in an open competition:

In the 2003 and half the 2004 year, I clocked up 12,000 kms. 90% seeking and securing suitable viticulture land. At the end of the day Mel Singh did not buy an acre of ground and I am lucky that none of the prospects doubted my credibility. In conclusion it was an interesting but not rewarding exercise. Since then Singh has sucked in Douglas Somers Edgar in a ginseng venture near Tauranga which has gone sour.

After the ginseng project collapsed because of over supply of moisture, Mr. Singh told David Cairns that the Horowhenua was a better climate and could he get me to source suitable properties, especially those that had grown asparagus. David told Mr. Singh that if he paid me the $27,000 he already owed me I would search for such properties. As a point of interest the McKenzie property west of the Bishop property and on SH 1 at Ohau has had all the posts put in place for viticulture development. This was at least another 20 ha of very stony ground that I had an option on after Mel Singh’s first instructions.

The last time I talked to Singh I called him “the eunuch’. He asked why I called him that and I said I did not think he would ever have the balls to complete the viticulture development that he sucked me into.

Examples of correspondence from Mr. Singh are attached

- still to do -

MOUTUA

In these semi retirement years I was asked by the Manawatu Catchment Board to classify the Otaki River catchments and flood prone adjacent lower plane lands and the Moutua Drainage basin, for rating purposes. The Otaki area was quite straightforward, particularly as I lived and farmed in the area.

The Moutua Scheme involved 70,000 acres adjacent to the lower Manawatu River and was different as its benefits were more complex. The Scheme involved periodic flooding (about every 25 years) of the residential area of Palmerston North and the rural area of the Oroua and Opiki districts, caused by the overflow of the Manawatu River. On the corner of Alve Road and State Highway 56, north of the Opiki toll bridge there is a post in the ground with marks showing the depth of water at the time of four major floods. The deepest was in 1953 when the water was six feet deep.

The Manawatu River was subject to tidal influence right back to Palmerston North, some 40 kilometres to the river’s discharge into the sea at Foxton. To overcome this extensive flooding of some of the most fertile land in New Zealand the Moutua Drainage Scheme was built. This entailed building a series of heavy duty floodgates into the south side stop bank of the Manawatu River at Moutua, between Foxton and Shannon. The released water was then guided across the former flax farm between parallel stop banks, 400 metres apart, to a point near Foxton town where the flood water was discharged into the river estuary by way of a 6 ft. diameter Plueger submersible pump, 17 kilometres river length from the flood gates. The flood way was four kilometers long. The trigger point to open the floodgates was when the flood level reached a certain point adjacent to the end of Ruahine Street in the Hokowhitu suburb. Since the installation of the floodway there has not been any flooding of the Hokowhitu area so that many prestigious houses grace that area.

The cost of running the floodway was assessed at $70,000 a year and the Plueger pump replacement was half a million dollars. The farmers adjacent to the floodway were expected to pay all the costs.

As I saw it the farmers suffered stress not knowing when the floodway would be flooded and the grazing lost because of siltation, whereas the greater benefit was to Palmerston North City. The cost of operating the floodway would only add $2 a head to the adult ratepayers of the city.

The CEO of the Catchment Board asked (demanded) that I delete that recommendation but I refused and now there is no Moutua Drainage Board as the whole operation comes under the umbrella of the Catchment Board, now called Horizons, otherwise known as the Manawatu Regional Council.

BOCCE COURTS

I had a big involvement in the development of the Bocce Courts which were developed in the Levin Adventure Park. Following is an extract from the local newspaper of January 23, 2003, and ‘before’ and ‘after’ photographs.

Above: Building the Bocce Courts, Levin

Above: The completed Bocce Courts, Levin, 2003

HOW MANY LIVES DOES A CAT HAVE?

On a Sunday afternoon in January 1943 a group of teenagers from the Ohakea area had gathered at Tangimoana. I for one had my swimming togs and the group dared me to swim the Rangitaiki River. It only looked about 50 yards wide and I had swum (dog paddled) 50 yards in the pool but I had not swum much over the past three years and never in a high volume fast flowing river.

The width had no bearing on the difficulty of the exercise and I was carried towards the open sea. I was completely exhausted when my feet dragged on a sand bar where I was able to stop the drift and eventually got back to Terra firma. I still had to get back so somewhat wiser went further up stream before entering the water and used the current and drift to get me back to my mates who had to help me out as the bank was quite steep at land fall.

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On the Heights Road farm about 1970 I was mustering on the hill just after daylight one winter’s morning. I was on my own and I had to move quickly to check the lead of the sheep. I was on Star, our own bred horse, newly broken in. The ground we were traversing at a canter was a rock strewn ridge top and I presume because of the heavy dew the horse lost his footing and spread eagled on the ground. I had only got one foot out of the stirrup when the horse got back up on his feet with me out of the saddle but one foot jammed in the stirrup. Star took off at a canter dragging me along among the rocks, I called for Star to stop, and he stopped. Star had been well broken in. Memories of Uncle Lionel came back, but I only got light bruising.

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In 1970 on the Shannon farm I had an International T6 crawler tractor with a cable operated blade. I was pushing over medium sized (about 12 feet high) kanuka bushes. The particular one that I had just pushed over had a root ball nearly a metre in diameter and it rolled behind the blade and under the engine housing. The machine was pointed across the lay of the land.

Before I could back off the root ball rolled causing the tractor to move sideways down the hill. Such was the fall of the land that the root ball rolled under the top track resulting in the tractor tipping over.

I was working parallel to a creek and fortunately the tipping was quite slow allowing me time to jump off the tractor and into the creek where I scrambled down the stream followed by the tools out of the side mounted tool box. The creek was only slightly wider than the seat and fuel tank of the tractor so there was no room for me so I was lucky to be able to escape down the creek bed. I had to get the neighbour’s bull dozer to pull the tractor out, the only damage was a shortened exhaust pipe – and wet pants

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In 1971 I leased the Te Horo dairy farm and I had the idea of using exotic bulls over the heifers to ease the calving problems. I ordered 10 Simmental straws at the Palmerston North AP & I Show. The following autumn I bought 10 empty Jersey cows from an Opiki clearing sale and brought them to Heights Road. I intended to winter them out on the farm which meant driving them up the ride behind the house. As I opened the gate the cows took off down the ridge, my dog headed them off but they skidded over the side and down a rock strewn face to their deaths.

Fortunately the bulldozer was parked near the gate as I needed it at the foot of the hill to bury the cows. The blade was operated by a cable off the power take off and as I lifted the blade the machine started to slide after the cows. I was able to hit the control lever and the blade dropped instantly to the ground. Without the instant reaction the bulldozer and I would have followed the cows. I had been using the blade on a wet track and the cleats had filled with clay. I then had to clean all the dirt off the cleats to enable me to back out of the predicament and without further ado proceed to bury the cows.

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About 1988 while I was managing McDonald Road, I was bringing ewes and lambs off the hill very late one afternoon. I had let the stock through the gate onto a lower paddock when I heard a lamb bleating plaintively. I went back up the hill about fifty yards where there was a tomo about two metres deep and a metre across. In the failing light I could see a lamb had fallen in.

I drove my Nissan 4-wheel drive back to illuminate the scene and my first reaction was to jump down the hole and throw the lamb out, but on second thoughts I realized that I would also have difficulty in getting out. I fashioned a lasso and snared the lamb and pulled it out, while doing this I badly scratched my elbow on the side of the hole.

Next day I had to meet my cousins Bernard and Belle Clarke at Wellington Airport as they flew in from Australia at mid-day. By this time by elbow was sore and filling up. I got back to Wellington Public Hospital almost delirious. The Emergency Department said they would give me an antibiotic but I refused it saying I wanted immediate relief. A Thai doctor agreed that the area needed draining, which she did. I went to a friend’s place in the inner suburbs where I slept for four hours before driving the 100 kilometres back home. The infection was the most deadly strain of staph or strep I have ever suffered.

Bernard has a very thorough knowledge of all types of fishing and he used to guide Australian fishing parties to New Zealand under the umbrella of NZ Airway. We had promised ourselves that we would go fishing up north Auckland but because of the infected elbow I could not undertake the long journey to the Bay of Islands. I asked a very good friend, Robin Mason, a keen fisherman, to take Bernard up north and Belle stayed with us at McDonald Road.

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In 1996 at the age of 71 I had a slight heart attack. As my only income was the National Superannuation, I took out a Classic Insurance Policy with Sun Alliance, whereby I would pay $40.00 per month for a $5,240.00 payout on death. I did not take on board the fine print. Recently I checked the policy No. 0720620P which is now held by Asteron, and discovered there are no bonuses; no interest; no inflation proofing and that I have to continue to pay $40.00 a month for another 12 years.

I telephoned Asteron and asked an officer of that company if I could pay a lesser monthly premium as I had already paid in $5,860.00, which is more than I would receive on termination. He agreed to give a written reply. Within that reply there was an offer to reduce the monthly premium to $30.00 but that the paid up value would reduce to $2,340.00. In my view Asteron were going to steal $3,000.00. If I stop paying I forego any payout as I shall be deemed as having broken the contract.

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After the heart attack in 1996 I attended the Heart Clinic at Palmerston North hospital where the heart specialist after giving me treadmill and ECG tests, recommended that I should go to Wakefield Hospital in Wellington with the likelihood of my having a by-pass. An appointment was arranged for me with Mr. Abernethy the specialist heart surgeon.

I telephoned Neville Caseley, a Naturopath, and told him I did not want a heart operation. (Tom Molesworth a fellow RFC, died on the operating table whilst undergoing a by-pass). Neville sent me a small bottle of ploue E, to dissolve the plaque. I was to rub a few drops on my wrists to work it into my system.

After reporting to Wakefield I was given an ECG where a photo is taken of the arteries and heart. Next morning Mr. Abernethy came into my room and said he could not understand the difference from the previous ECG as restriction now did not justify a bypass. I said I had had treatment from a Naturopath. Mr. Abernethy said he did not go along with such treatment but that I could go home.

The ECG at Wakefield cost the system $3,500.00 and the by-pass would have cost $35,000.00. The Naturopath got full credit from me even if the medical profession did not give him credit. Neville’s treatment cost me less than $50.00.

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Some four years ago my water works changed its regular pattern and as I was the only member of my immediate family who had not had cancer, I was tested for prostate cancer. Subsequently it was shown I had a PSA test of 14, so it was Neville Caseley to the rescue again and he prescribed CO Q10 +PE to be applied to the wrist.

My doctor recommended a prescription that enlarged my breasts, then added monthly Lukrin injections and then changed them to three monthly injections at a cost of $300.00 each.

A PSA reading taken just before Christmas 2008 showed a reading of 1.4 and I am told it will not get much lower than that so I can be very grateful for modern medicine.