eBook pdf for Issue 119

A P P E T I S E R
Those School Rompers!
An article on women’s sports clothing by Claire Duncan on page 20 is
followed by Marie McRae’s witty poem on folk dancing at Te Papapa
School in the 1930s. Some school memories are best forgotten…
Teachers practising folk dancing at a physical education
refresher course in about 1947.
Archives New Zealand / Te Rua Mahara o Te Kawanatanga. Ref: aaqt6401, A1851
1

E D I T O R I A L
Dear Readers,
It seems no time at all that we marked the 100th Anniversary of Anzac Day
1915. Three contributions in this issue relate to the Great War. In the Wellington
regional section, Irma Hood relates the story of a patriotic flag, embroidered by her
grandmother; the needlework marathon raised 1,025 pounds in aid of the soldiers, a
huge sum of money in 1915. The actual flag, I discovered, still hangs proud (and high)
at the Greytown Library. I am indebted to the Library team who climbed a ladder,
lowered the flag and took the photograph to illustrate our Greytown page… and at
very short notice.
This cooperation, reflected throughout the country in a myriad of ways, highlights a most rewarding aspect of my job.
In February I took a long-awaited road trip, a picturesque loop of the West Coast museums and historical sites, visiting
localities such Black’s Point, Hokitika, Greytown, Westport, Denniston and Granity where the warm welcome by both
staff and volunteers was further enriched by their helpfulness and obvious enthusiasm at imparting local knowledge.
Don Campbell’s leading story is a witty and heartwarming account of growing up in Otaki, Irene Bronlund relates a
very different childhood experience on Auckland’s North Shore, and Dunedin is the setting for Ian Dougherty’s article
on the railway workshops where work, recreation and family were intertwined.
While cookbooks dominate bookshop shelves today, this was not always the case as explained in Matt Elliott’s engaging
contribution using a Maungaturoto fundraiser cookery book as an example. The ‘Mock Chicken Fritters’ recipe, made
from tripe and onions in a batter, declares ‘Flavour nothing like tripe’. Tomorrow night’s dinner perhaps?
Bon appetite!
Wendy Rhodes
Editor
150 Years of Rail in New Zealand
By Matt Turner
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C O N T E N T S
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Contributors
Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ
Beattie, Kath
Beckett, John
Bronlund, Irene V.
Campbell, Don
Conroy, Bill
Davies, Barbara
Dougherty, Ian
Duncan, Claire
Dunedin Public Libraries
Elliott, Matt
Findlay, Ian
Greytown Library
Haymes, Bill
Hood, Irma
Howell, D
McRae Marie
Moor, Christopher
Nga Taonga Sound and Vision
Peka, June
Petone Settlers Museum
Rutherford, Mrs
Saunders, Alec
Scott, John Halliday
Sir George Grey Special Collection,
Auckland Libraries
Small, Shirley
South Canterbury Museum
Spellerberg, Ian
Tait, James
The Nelson Provincial Museum
Pupuri Taonga o Te Tai Ao
Williams, Rosemary
Contents
My Childhood in a Children’s Home 4
Don Campbell is welcomed back to our pages.
The 1936 Anzac Stamps 10
Christopher Moor discusses the commemorative stamps.
Yesterday’s Dinners 14
Maungaturoto Cookery Book sparks this tale from Matt Elliot
Lancaster Road 16
Irene V. Bronlund grew up in Birkdale, Auckland in the 1940s.
Stretching Our Legs 20
Women’s Sports Clothes from Tunics to Rompers by Claire Duncan.
Folk Dancing 24
Marie McRae’s poem relates to schooldays at Te Papapa Primary.
An Ordinary Man 26
A poignant World War One account by Rosemary Williams.
From the Regions: Canterbury 29
Centrefold: Drive, Fly or Taxi In 36
Hillside Railway Workshops 40
Ian Dougherty reflects on the workshop’s social history.
Paper-knives:
Forgotten Reading and Writing Accessories 46
A history compiled by Ian Spellerberg.
Hillary and Me 48
Kath Beattie digs out her old Epsom Girls’ Grammar exercise book.
From The Regions: Wellington and the Wairarapa 53
Mailbox 64
Our Honoured Dead 66
A poem of respect penned by Bill Conroy.
New to Print 68
Index and Genealogy List 70
Editor’s Choice: Hawke’s Bay Threesome 72
An appealing family photograph contributed by Bill Haymes.
Opinions: Expressed by contributors are not
necessarily those of New Zealand Memories.
Accuracy: While every effort has been made to
present accurate information, the publishers take no
responsibility for errors or omissions.
Copyright: All material as presented in
New Zealand Memories is copyright to the publishers
or the individual contributors as credited.
ISSN 1173-4159
April / May 2016
Cover image:
The Brackenfield Hunt Meet on the drive of Amberley
House Girls Collegiate School in about 1938-39.
Courtesy: Mrs Rutherford.
3

S T O R Y
4

S T O R Y
My Childhood in a
Children’s Home
By Don Campbell
Getting pregnant must have been terribly
frightening for my mother. In 1927 her
unmarried state carried public shame
and absolutely no public support such as
a welfare benefit. So my mother, acting on advice from
family members, placed me in the care of Miss Ellen
Feltham, who managed a small children’s home in a
rented bach at Otaki Beach.
My mother didn’t just ‘dump’ me there and forget
about me. She paid for my upkeep throughout my
childhood and visited me from time to time, although
not as frequently as she would have liked, as she had
gone to live in the South Island. As soon as I was old
enough to read she also sent me letters, sometimes
ending them ‘With oceans of love’. I can remember
when I was about nine years old standing on the beach
and watching the big waves rolling in, and wondering
at that! On my eleventh birthday when I was still in
Miss Feltham’s care, but in the big new Home, my
mother sent me a brand-new bicycle. It was a full-size
Monarch, bought from the Farmers Trading Company.
Yes, she did her very best, despite the difficulties and
distance, to always be a really good mother to me.
I have very fond memories of my early years in that
first little beach bach home. Miss Feltham had at that
time a kind and good-natured helper, Miss Edith
Wallace, who was especially fond of me, and I her. I also
loved, and was loved by, Miss Feltham, who was called
‘Gran’ by the children in her care. My earliest memory
is being carried off to bed on Gran Feltham’s shoulders
while she, with some of the children around her, sang
me a little bedtime song. I even remember the words:
Goodnight Mama, Goodnight Papa. Goodnight to all the
rest. Goodnight Mama goodnight Papa, but I love ____
best! I don’t remember whose name was sung in the last
line, but I hope it was Mummy. I also remember being
carried home from the beach on a big boy’s shoulders
when we had all been down getting pipis for tea. (Or
maybe for a ‘pipi party’ on a rickety old deck.) And at
Christmas time there was once a ‘treasure hunt’ for our
Christmas presents in lupin bushes growing nearby.
Yes, my very early childhood memories are all happy
ones.
When Miss Feltham’s children’s home in that rough
old rented bach became too small for the children
in her care, she and some of us children moved to a
bigger rented home at Otaki Railway. I have very few
memories of my time there, but I do remember, when I
was about four years old, getting shouted at for walking
under a draught horse! A local farmer had come with
a load of firewood for the home, using a horse-pulled
dray. Some older children and I were standing around
watching. I decided to go to the other side of the
horse, so I stooped down and walked right under it.
Fortunately the big animal stood quite still and there
were no adverse effects except for the scolding I got,
and not just from the farmer. Apparently everybody
knew you weren’t supposed to walk under horses.
Climbing the trig station on top of Pukehou, north of Otaki. Older Home children on a holiday picnic hike, 1930s
5

C O O K E R Y
Yesterdays’ Dinners
By Matt Elliott
Walk into any bookshop these days and prominently displayed are shelves
of cook books. Increasingly, the majority of them are by New Zealand
chefs who are now considered celebrities. There was a time, though, when
the only choice seemed to be the Edmonds Cookery Book or…um…
In decades past, recipe books were a staple for community groups who
were fundraising. Recently my wife came across one published in 1960 by
the Maungaturoto branch of the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers
as part of their 25th anniversary celebrations.
The township of Maungaturoto spreads across the undulating Northland
countryside a few minutes’ drive from the base of the Brynderwyns. I’ve
stopped there many times since the 1970s, when our family car (packed
with my parents, siblings and dog) was headed for the west coast.
The ‘Mid-Way’ dairy - whose name was always a topic of speculation
- offered the best vanilla ice-creams I’ve ever tasted. I can recall people
waiting for the train at the small wooden station that stands by the railway
line to this day. The court house could be a busy place with people mingling
outside it on sitting days. All that has changed, of course, but it remains
a busy service centre for the surrounding farming community, as well as
having a Fonterra plant producing milk powder.
The contributors to the cookbook were no doubt local identities, among
them are a number of Cullens (who are still prominent in the area), multiple
Judds, Fosters, Mrs. Ethel Mabbett, Mrs. Brlijevich and Silvy A. Wintle.
The recipes range from meat dishes to cake decorating, soups to puddings.
There is even a section titled ‘Hints for Bachelors and Newlyweds’, with
details on how long to boil vegetables, braise meat or make short pastry.
The meat pie recipe is accompanied with the subtitle, ‘Special Friday night
at RSA’. Among my favourites are:
Hungarian Cream Cheese: Put milk in a jar and place lid on securely. Stand
outside in full sun and leave for 5 days…Place solidified milk in cloth (salt or
cereal bag is very suitable), and hang up until the whey has dripped away. The
result is a sweet cream cheese, the sweetness having come from the sun’s rays.
Soap for Baby’s Woollies: 1 large packet Lux, 4 oz eucalyptus, 1 cup Meths.
Mix till smooth and keep in 1lb. jam jar. 1 tablespoon to a large basin of warm
water.
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C O O K E R Y
Interspersed throughout are advertisements for a number of shops in Maungaturoto (with phone numbers
such as 6 or 25), Wellsford and Whangarei. Products promoted are a roll-call of common household items of
the time such as Twintone tableware, Kempthorne’s Barrier Cream, Ultimate transistors, Glaxo, Old Mill coffee,
Laurel heating kerosene, the ‘La Gloria’ wringer washing machine and the Tellus G-70 vaccuum cleaner. A Bank
of New Zealand advertisement purports to show how exciting it is to have a cheque account!
The book is a lovely, simple piece of nostalgia but a reminder that no matter how flash, fancy and international
café and restaurant dining may be today, old family recipes are often the best and heartiest meals to share.
Especially when the ingredients are freshly sourced.
I’ve learnt that sage goes well with sheep’s heart and stewed and jugged pukeko requires about four hours of
slow cooking. I also realised how much I miss the taste of toheroa soup. n
15

F E A T U R E
Stretching Our Legs:
Women’s Sports Clothes from Tunics to Rompers
By Claire Duncan
Nelson Girls College for Girls gymnasium.
In the twentieth century it became more acceptable for girls to exercise and participate in sports. Nelson College
for Girls acquired its own gymnasium in the early 1900s. Students, dressed in ‘gym tunics’ (which later became the
uniform at many girls’ schools). This posed photograph shows the girls demonstrating the skills they are learning
in physical education. Nelson Provincial Museum, F. N. Jones Collection: 310032.
20

F E A T U R E
While exercise is now considered a vital part of
everyday life for men and women, we’ve come
a long way to the point where it’s socially
acceptable for women and men alike to wear
lycra. Prior to early to mid-20th Century, women were expected
to be well-covered; only decades before that, women were
discouraged from exercising at all. Even upon its development
in school programmes and public gymnasiums, it would remain
something of a novelty for many decades to come. The constriction
around women’s participation in physical activities and education
were reflected in the apparel donned by women while they played
sport or exercised.
New Zealand’s earliest known gymnasium opened in 1842,
thanks to J.H. Rule in Sydney Street, Thorndon, Wellington.
According to the The New Zealand Gazette and Wellington
Spectator, the gym provided a combination of physical exercise,
intellectual improvement, and religious training. While it
sounds a little dry to our ears, the facilities apparently included
a ‘swinging pole’, for both ‘gymnastic exercise and amusement.’ 1
In 1876, Christ’s College in Christchurch built a gymnasium,
the floor made from wattle bar. This was followed by a rush in
the 1880s when instructor Jock Hanna converted around twenty
Otago school halls to gymnasiums. This set a precedent for the
gradual introduction of gyms to other public and private schools
around the country.
In the first years of the 20th Century, ideas promoting health and
exercise took off around the Western world. Physical education
was considered as a fundamental part of developing young people
into good citizens and combating the effects of urban living. In
1894, surgeon and politician William Chapple claimed that ‘one
well-equipped gymnasium exerts a greater influence against social
vice than one sensational sermon’. 2
While sports and exercises began to be involved in school
curriculums, it was common for boys and girls to exercise
separately. Schoolgirls were expected to wear gym tunics (otherwise
known as ‘slips’), stockings and long-sleeved undershirts while
exercising. What is interesting is the ‘gym tunics’ worn during
workouts would later become general uniforms to be worn during
academic lessons in the classroom. As norms around what women
could wear relaxed throughout society, sportswear became more
comfortable in tandem. Tunics similar to those worn for sports
are worn to this day at girls’ schools around the country.
In the early to mid 1900s, Prussian showman Eugen Sandow
travelled widely to share and display the benefits of his fitness
body-building regimen. His philosophy of regular, vigorous
exercise for both men and women was widely shared on his tour
1 The New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, 3 December 1842, p.1.
2 W. A. Chapple, Physical Education in our State Schools, Wellington, Lyon & Blair
Printers, 1894, pp. 11–12
21

W O R L D W A R O N E
An Ordinary Man
By Rosemary Williams
He stood 5’11” (180cm) high and weighed just 143lb
(65kg) with blue-grey eyes and brown hair. His skin
was fair and he had a ruddy complexion, perhaps a
little weather-worn from working outdoors as a farm
labourer. He had clear and neat handwriting, perfect vision and was
34 years of age when he was declared fit to bear arms and fight for
his country. He was conscripted into the 28th Reinforcements, New
Zealand Expeditionary Force bound for the First World War. It is
highly likely that he had never shot at anything in his life except,
perhaps, the odd rabbit.
His name was Peter William Hay and he was born on 24th January
1883 in Pleasant Point, South Canterbury. He had one sister and three
brothers. When he was born his father, a Horse Cover Maker, was 50
years of age and his mother, Frances (Cruse), was 33 years of age. He
was my Great Uncle.
When the war broke out in 1914 men flocked in their thousands to
answer the call to arms. By the end of the first week of the war 14,000
had volunteered to enlist. By 1916, when it was realised how many
were being killed or maimed, men were not so keen to volunteer.
Because the numbers needed were not coming forth, conscription was
introduced. It was the 27th April 1917 when Peter was conscripted
to join the 63,000 men who had already embarked to fight in a far off
foreign land. For the past three years ship load after ship load had been
transporting thousands of young men to the front.
Of the 100,000 from New Zealand who saw action in the First World
War over 18,000 were killed and some 44,000 injured. An incredible
number considering, in 1914, the population of New Zealand stood
at just 1,000,000.
Peter was posted to the 1st Battalion Otago Regiment. After just
three months training in New Zealand he boarded the Ulimaroa on
the 26th July 1917 in Wellington, arriving in Plymouth, England
on the 24th September via South Africa. A brief stint of training
on the Salisbury Plains followed. Peter left for France on the 26th
October and where, on the 29th October, he was ‘marched in’ to 10th
Company, 1st Battalion Otago Regiment, as a Private.
On the 21st October 1917 the 1st Battalion had been moved to
Harlettes where the new recruits would probably have joined their
comrades. Then on the 13th November 1917 the 1st Battalion
proceeded to Brewery Camp under the command of Major W.F.
Tracy, M.C. By now the battle for Passchendaele was all but over and
the Otago Regiment became part of the 2nd Infantry Brigade.
By the end of October 1917, preparations were underway for an
attack to be launched on the enemy stronghold, Polderhoek Chateau
ruins and its surrounding buildings. The Chateau stood on high
26

W O R L D W A R O N E
ground overlooking the New Zealand line and well
within enemy lines. The Chateau had actually been
captured earlier in October, only to be taken back by
the enemy the same day.
It was decided that the taking of the Chateau would
be a combined effort by both the 1st Battalions of
Otago and Canterbury. On the 25th November 1917
the Otago Regiment was marched out of Brewery
Camp to Walker Camp, southeast of Ypres to train
with the Canterbury Regiment. Over the days 29th
and 30th November a combined practice attack was
undertaken on ground similar to that which the troops
would face in the actual battle. At this time also, the
artillery were pounding the area around the Chateau
in the hope it would make it easier for the troops to
make progress.
On 1st December 1917 orders for the attack on
Polderhoek Chateau were issued with the assault to
begin on 3rd December with the two Battalions, 1st
Otago and 1st Canterbury comprising two officers
and 100 other ranks per Company. It was decided that
the two leading Companies would be the 10th and
the 8th. By daylight on the 3rd December all troops
were in place. Zero hour was set at 12 noon and it had
been confirmed that all enemy wire entanglements
had been destroyed by the bombardments of 29th and
30th November.
It was intended to encircle the Chateau and its
grounds and to send the two companies in the
advance, one in support of the other, with the attack to
be undertaken in two waves with space between. The
first wave was to clear the enemy trenches and then
hold the line. After a wait of ten minutes the second
wave was to go ahead and clear the Chateau grounds
and hold the line. There was also to be an artillery
barrage to support the attack comprising machine gun
fire, trench mortars and gas to be discharged by Stokes
mortars.
The line for the artillery barrage for the operation
was set at 150 yards (137m) in advance of the infantry.
This photograph by Henry Armytage Sanders, thought to be at Harlettes, is dated 6 November 1917 and shows
soldiers on the march through the French countryside. It would have been one week before Peter Hay’s regiment
moved to Brewery Camp under the command of Major W.F Tracy M.C.
Opposite top: Peter William Hay’s photograph appeared in the Auckland Weekly News 7 March 1918 p40.
Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Ref: G013009-1/2
27

R E G I O N S
36

C A N T E R B U R Y
Drive, Fly or Taxi In
The Sprague & Sexton Service Station, on the corner of Shaw and King Streets, Timaru in about 1935. Timaru’s
first airport was just south at Saltwater Creek allowing aircraft to taxi up the road to the service station.
South Canterbury Museum. Ref: 2004/236.1
Timaru
37

E D I T O R ’ S C H O I C E
Hawke’s Bay Threesome
Big brother George takes charge of the ‘Haymes Bros.’ cart and entertains his siblings. The photograph, contributed
by George’s son Bill Haymes, would date back to about 1911 judging by the ages of the three immaculately
dressed children.
George (born 1902), Ethel May (known as Pearl – born 1908) and Jack Haymes (born 1904) are the children of
Hastings builder Samuel Newsome Haymes and his wife Ethel Mary (nee Brown) Haymes.
72