Work in progress
Previous | Contents | Next My birthplace and residence was 11 Seddon Street, Westhoughton in Lancashire, England, a short street of adjoining houses with two rooms up and two down. Typical “Coronation Street”. From the front door you stepped onto the footpath. From the back door you stepped into an ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Cliff was a bit short of seventeen and a half years old when he walked off his last farm job, moved back home and started the second of his two stints in the mine. Since he was working alongside his father, this will be a ... Read more
| Contents | Next | In 1931 Cliff left school, and home, for his first job a few days short of his 13th birthday. He learnt about life the hard way, working for — and living with — a variety of people from around the Hikurangi/Whangarei area of Northland. Mainly dairy farmers ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Some of the following is in the first person, written by Cliff, some in the third person, written by me based on his notes. ~ Ian § Walter and his wife were a lovely couple and a pleasure to work for. Their farm was south ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Jack and Maureen (not their real names ~Ian) had a poor gum-land farm, all sloping hillside except for a small area of rush-covered flat where their house was. It was a wet, bleak, inhospitable-looking place. The house contained only the bare essentials of furniture, but ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Charlie was a former bushman and Kauri gum digger, a very shy man, fairly tall and lean, with an impressive moustache. In a fit of recklessness he’d advertised for a wife, and struck gold. His wife was a pleasant, happy, outgoing person whose previous husband ... Read more
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
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