Work in progress
Previous | Contents | Next Cliff wrote about most of the farmers he worked for in the early and mid- 1930s, some at length, but others briefly or in snippets that can be hard to put into chronological order or to construct as a narrative.Much of the following is in ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Cliff worked for WH from November 1st 1935 to January 7th 1936. He was the meanest, most miserable man he’d ever met, Cliff said, worse even than Johnny, who like WH (and Cliff) came from Lancashire. Cliff felt this didn’t say much for his fellow ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Depression or not, I don’t think my family ever missed a summer holiday at Whananaki or Oakura, and, before I started work for my new bosses I went with them to Oakura. Usually two or three families would hire a truck onto which all our ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Colin wasn’t his real name. ~IanMy new boss had the knack of extracting the maximum effort from me for the least possible cost, and he made the most of it, setting me subtle challenges which I felt compelled to meet. He was completely callous in ... Read more
My father Cliff loved an audience, and his grandchildren proved to be better listeners than me. Dad and I certainly enjoyed a good argument — more I’m sure than those around us — but as his son I found sitting and listening to him harder than they did. Fortunately he ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Dorothy thought that parts of this were in poor taste and unnecessary. You’ve been warned. ~IanAnother farm labourer arrived. He was a boy from Auckland and much older than me, probably about sixteen. He was related to an elderly couple who owned a sheep and ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Most of my memories seem to do with food, and I suppose this is hardly surprising in a growing twelve-year-old (strangely enough I didn’t actually grow until I started work — I seemed to thrive on it). Dad kept racing pigeons which had to be ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Hay-making is hard work, but more so in those days. The grass was cut with a horse mower. If it was turned to dry this was done by hand with a pitch-fork. It was then raked into windrows with a horse-drawn tumbler rake and swept ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next I gradually made progress towards achieving my ambition. Dave arrived every day to do odd jobs and take the cream out to the corner for collection, about a mile away. The cream was transported in a light flat-topped cart to which Mary was harnessed. The ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next The Hikurangi telephone exchange operated from 3.00am to 10.00pm. Only once during those first few weeks was I able to ring Jimmy Orr before he went home after night shift — and this before we had sat down to dinner. I could never be sure ... Read more