Apr 28, 2008
My father features so largely in my life that many of the stories of my past are really his stories or make some reference to him. However the early part of his life needs to be written up, just to complete the picture, as far as that can be done from the scraps of anecdotes he left us.
He was born in Westport in 1894, and seems to have spent quite a lot of his preschool years with his grandparents, the Ferrises, at Boatmans out of Reefton.
Later he went to school at many places as his father shifted around the country, but one school that he talked about was at Thorndon in Wellington, where the kids were known as the "Thorndon Chums". There he must have been about ten or twelve years old, and formed a close friendship with a kid called Nigger Wilson, who led him on all kinds of adventures. One was to slip on board ships at the wharf, and see what they could pinch or scrounge, more particularly in the way of food. Sometimes the cook was kind to them, but at other times they wandered through the ships' companionways, just exploring. If they were accosted by one of the crew, Nigger would say they were looking for the urinal. I suppose that suggested to the crew member a state of emergency so he would oblige with directions instead of kicking them off the ship.
Once on their way to school along Molesworth Street, a kid came up to them and confided that he had hidden three pennies under a window grill on Staples Brewery. Nigger regarded this as a godsend, so as soon as the bell went for classes, he and Dan slipped away, and lavished the money on sweets and cake.
On the way home from school up Tinakori Road, they would often sneak onto the back of a horse drawn wagon taking goods for delivery up the steep street. At least they would until a pedestrian noticed them, and yelled to the wagoner to "Whip behind!" when they would jump off before they felt the sting of his whip.
He also went to school at Taradale and Napier and Dunedin and Invercargill, and had started training as a "pupil teacher" at Invercargill before he went off to the war.
The army sent him first to Egypt, preparatory to going to Gallipoli, and he even volunteered, unsuccessfully, for the camel corps, in an effort to avoid that. However the Gallipoli campaign was called off, and he spent some time guarding the Suez Canal instead. There he was with a bunch of Australians who upended an Arab boy with a shirtful of oranges, and were helping themselves to the fruit when an English officer rode up on his horse and demanded that they return it. He remembers a long Aussie standing in the water eating an orange with nothing on but his hat, and saying to the officer "Aw! Go on!." There really wasn't much the officer could do to assert his authority, so he put spurs to his steed and galloped away.
Their camp was at Mahdi, under the command of General Godley. The general's wife seems to have had some part in their training, for when they were marching across the desert, she would say, in her girlish way, "Make them run, Alec. I love to see them run." I don't know how Dad got this snippet of information, but he said it was no joke double marching across the sand hills with full pack.
On leave he got to know Cairo and the pyramids and such, and learnt to count to ten in Arabic. He could also make the appropriate noise to get a camel to kneel so you could get on its back. He had a story about being guided through one of the pyramids where the guide showed them a little lamp that had been burning continuously for more than three thousand years. Whereupon an Australian in the party promptly blew it out and said, "Well it's out now!" The guide quickly produced a box of matches and relit it.
After Gallipoli they were transferred to France, and most of those stories are in Dad's diaries that Andrew has typed out. One that I don't think got into the diary was that the Eighth Otago Regiment were not involved in the massacre at Paschendale. Their colonel looked at it, and refused to order them into it, for which he was cashiered, disgraced and sent home. I wish I knew his name. Dad said it was a disaster from the start. They (mostly the Aucklanders and Canterburians) lost all those men to capture an area of swamp which they held all winter while the Germans showered them with shells from a ridge on the far side, and then at the end of the winter our blokes were pulled back anyway. So it achieved nothing.
After the war Dad worked for John Rigg, Auntie Maude's father, first as a labourer, building the Seatoun house, (later Auntie Hannah's, and now ?Sally's), and later as a salesman selling Rountree's chocolates, pastiles and clear gums. I guess that must have had him based in Dunedin, because at some stage he bought the house at Ravensborne, which later features in the car story. Alan was born there in 1921.
From there he must have gone back to teaching, because he was teaching at Korere near Nelson when Hils was born in 1924. Next was Romahapa, where Barry (1926), and I (1928) arrived, and then Highcliffe and Fordell (q.v.) in 1930 where Darce was born. After that, Kakahi (1938), Linton (1942) and Pipiwai (about 1952). He retired from there about 1954 and bought the house at Taradale, although he and Mum continued to do some relieving teaching at Maori schools after that, and Dad did a short spell at Napier Boys' High. The rest you know.